Rescue Rinko from the Demon Choujin!
by nld200xy
Summary: It's a peaceful day in Osaka when Rinko is kidnapped by a mysterious new evil choujin. He then lured Mantarou into his world where Mantarou must defeat his 5 henchmen. Can he do it? Read and find out.
1. Chapter 1

Rescue Rinko from the Demon Choujin

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from Kinnikuman Nisei/Ultimate Muscle. I do, however, own the villains for this fic.

Oh yes, Osaka Japan, home to some of the finest attractions Japan has to offer. Here, many people lived their daily lives like normal people do.

But when people had time off from their busy schedules, they would watch pro wrestling, which seemed to be the most popular sport… at least in the anime this fic is based off of.

Here lives a teenaged wrestler named Kinniku Mantarou (Kid Muscle's Japanese name). This boy was very odd. He wore a mask with rather large lips and a nose similar to that of a pig. He also had a spike on his head, brown hair under his mask that only revealed a small tuft of it and he wore blue spandex… I'm not kidding.

He was the prince of Kinniku Planet and was the son of Kinniku Suguru, better known by many as Kinnikuman. His trainer was a small figure named Alexandra Meat (Yeah, that's actually his full name). He was rather short and wore a diaper and a cape, but don't blame his shortness and cute exterior on a physical condition. He was only 10. (Yes, English dub fans, he's not a 35-year-old in a 10-year-old's body, he's actually 10… though he might be 8. I'm sticking with 10)

Despite the age difference, Mantarou was kind of dumb when it came to anything not math-related while Meat was a genius. Mantarou would have never become a great fighter if not for Meat's guidance. I say Mantarou's kind of dumb because there were times over the past in which he would show a sign of intelligence, usually when odds were stacked against him.

Mantarou was enjoying a nice, average day. Nothing was really going wrong at the time.

"Mantarou, shouldn't we be training?" Meat asked while taking a stroll around Osaka.

Mantarou simply laughed and replied, "Meat, this is Osaka, the place where it's good to slack off and have fun."

Meat felt a vein in his forehead. This was due to the fact that Mantarou was possibly the only superhero sent to protect earth who didn't take his job seriously. He wasn't big on the whole concept of hard work like the other heroes, and that made Meat disappointed a lot of the time.

Just as the kid was about to give Mantarou a lecture, Mantarou's gaze shifted towards a young girl with brown hair in pigtails and a nice, average build walking by. This girl was the apple of Mantarou's eye, Rinko. (Roxanne's Japanese name)

Mantarou's eyes filled with hearts as steam literally poured out of his head. The kid drooled and ran towards Rinko. Rinko heard the footsteps coming up from behind her and sent her leg back, kicking him square in the nuts.

Mantarou cringed as he fell to the ground, tears forming in his eyes due to the excruciating pain. (Seriously, if you women knew how it feels to be kicked in the balls… imagine being kicked in the breasts. It's the same feeling, at least according to one of my online friends)

Rinko blinked, looking at the downed man and said, "Sorry, I thought you were a lecher."

'There's a difference?' Meat thought as he ran over.

But at this very moment, Mantarou's eyes widened when he looked up and noticed a dark figure looming behind Rinko. The man's face was hidden by a cloak, so it was impossible to tell who it was.

"Who are you!?" Meat spat as Mantarou grunted, "Whoever he is, he is not getting his hands on Rinko-chan!"

The man grinned wickedly and leapt right behind Rinko, placing an arm around her neck and said, "Stay back, or the girl gets it."

Mantarou froze in response to this. He did not wish to see his beloved be killed before his very eyes.

Suddenly, the man's hands became tentacles that wrapped all around Rinko's body as the man laughed and said, "If you want her back, follow me!"

But it was impossible to follow the man as he leapt atop a building an continued to leap across them.

"How are we supposed to know where he went?" Meat asked as Mantarou fell to the ground, placing his hands against the cement and let down tears.

Meat looked with concern and tried to comfort Mantarou, but Mantarou rose his head high and shouted, "I'LL GET YOU BACK, RINKO!!!!"

Meat then noticed something rather odd. A slip of paper drifted into his hands as he looked at it, his eyes widening.

"Mantarou!" he exclaimed, "The man left his coordinates for us! We're supposed to meet him in the park."

"You mean where my house is?" Mantarou asked, picking his nose while Meat nodded and said, "This might be a trap, though."

Mantarou did not care. If Rinko's life was at stake, he would stand tall and face evil head-on.

They rushed to the park where Mantarou's house was located. See, when Mantarou first arrived on Earth, he was only assigned a small part of Osaka, a small area that wasn't highly populated. There he lived in a house similar to a dog house, but it was designed to look similar to his mask, the door being his teeth.

Upon entering the area, they noticed that their ally, a hero who was a cross between a gazelle and a man was standing before the cloaked figure who was still holding Rinko, only now she was unconscious.

This was Gazelleman (Dik Dik's Japanese name), the top student at the Hercules Factory, which was where the heroes had been trained.

"You release the girl," he said with a grimace as the cloaked figure smiled and said, "Mantarou-san, nice to see you found your way here."

"What's going on!?" Gazelleman asked as Mantarou replied, "That man stole Rinko! I'm here to get her back!"

The cloaked man laughed and opened up a dark portal in the air. Mantarou, Meat and Gazelleman freaked out as the man entered the portal and said, "Follow me if you wish to see your soul mate again."

Mantarou gritted his teeth and shouted, "BRING IT, YOU SICK MONSTER!!!!" and was about to enter the portal after him as Gazelleman tugged on the back of his collar and said, "Since this is obviously a trap, you might need some backup."

Mantarou looked at the dik dik with admiration as tears filled his eyes and a smile crossed his face.

"It means a lot that you would help me in my time of need," he said, "but I must do this alone."

"No, Mantarou!" Meat snapped, "You're going to need all the help you can get!"

The kid shook his head and said, "Take care of Osaka while I'm away," entering the portal.

"We must go in after him," Meat stated as Gazelleman nodded and said, "You go in first. I'll gather Terry and Seiuchin (Wally's Japanese name)."

But just as this was said, Meat noticed the portal starting to close. The two freaked out as Gazelleman clutched onto the side of the portal, prying it open with his strong arms and said, "I'll keep it open as long as I can! Go find help!"

Meat hesitated a bit, but understood the situation running off in search of Mantarou's other allies. One was a young Texan boy named Terry the Kid. (Kenyon is just "the Kid" in the original version) He was the son of Terryman, one of the former justice Choujin. Choujin translates to "superman", so that's what the heroes and villains were called.

Terry the Kid was like his father in terms of abilities, but due to his rashness, he wasn't willing to admit it. He had blond hair and a mullet at the back. He had a rather muscular build and wore a grey T-shirt with blue elbow, arm and knee pads.

Seiuchin was a walrus that stood on two legs. Yeah, I can't imagine more ways to really describe his facial features. He was a bit round body-wise, but that was natural for walruses. He also wore bandages on his arms because god-knows-why and blue boots in combat. He also wore a headband and had a rather hard-to-describe way of styling the hair atop his head.

But these characters are saved for a later time in the story. Let's get back to Mantarou.

Mantarou found himself in a dark dimension. The sky was nothing but darkness and all Mantarou had to stand on was a single platform in the middle of it all.

"Good to see that you actually came," said the cloaked figure who stood before the kid who snapped, "YOU GIVE BACK RINKO RIGHT NOW!!!"

"I'm afraid I can't do that," said the cloaked figure as a bit of the darkness formed into a cage and the cloaked figure threw Rinko into it.

Mantarou's eyes were wide as the cage disappeared into the darkness and the cloaked figure said, "Don't worry, all you have to do is defeat us and your girlfriend will be spared."

"What do you mean by us!?" Mantarou asked as the man in the cloak laughed and remarked, "You didn't think it was just me, did you?"

Mantarou was even more frightened when 5 doors appeared in the darkness. The cloaked figure smiled and explained, "These doors hide my partners behind them. You must defeat all 4 if you are to save your girlfriend."

Suddenly, the platform below Mantarou's feet formed into 5 paths, each one leading to a respective door. Mantarou noticed some odd emblems appear on the top of each door. One had a skull surrounded by sand above it. Another had the Milky Way above it. A tree represented another door while a lightning rod did another. The fifth door had an eyeball above it.

Mantarou decided the tree looked most harmless and said, "I pick door number 3!" running through the door as the cloaked man laughed and said, "Kinniku Mantarou, you have a lot of bravery to choose that door."


	2. Chapter 2

Rescue Rinko from the Demon Choujin

Mantarou found himself in the area he expected to be placed. He figured the tree represented a forest of some kind.

He looked back and forth trekking through the forest while he thought, 'Where is my opponent?'

Then he looked at a tree and grinned with excitement when he saw that the tree contained Karubi Don. For those of you unaware what this is, this is a delicacy quite popular as a form of fast food in Japan. Only worth 300 yen, which is, like, 30 US cents, it was very delicious. Karubi Don was a secondary name that translated to beef bowl. It's most often referred to as Gyuudon, but since this fic is based off of the sequel, I call it Karubi Don because that's what it's called in Nisei. In the English dub, it's known as Cow and Rice.

But wait, why would a tree be bearing this and not fruit? Well, Mantarou didn't care. He was suddenly hungry as he climbed into the tree and snatched himself a bowl.

Then he started to dance while singing, "With my rice, I like to have some cow-cow-cow! It tastes so very good, I don't know how-how-how! It's my favorite form of chow-chow-chow! Wow… wow… Eat now!"

But just as he was about to munch on his beloved food, a vine whipped out and grabbed it as it retracted towards a strange-looking man.

"HEY, GIVE ME BACK MY KARUBI DON!!!" Mantarou snapped as the man simply smirked and shattered the bowl to pieces, Mantarou's eyes wide open.

This man's body, which was a typical muscular wrestler's build, was green. He wore no clothing for he had leaves covering his private parts. He also had a head like a sunflower, only he had eyes and a mouth.

"Welcome," the man said as Mantarou still couldn't get over the destruction of perfectly good Karubi Don, "I am Forestman."

Mantarou blinked and narrowed his eyes saying, "Well, at least it's more inspired than Plantman or Flowerman."

"Thank you," Forestman replied, "Anyway, you have entered into my territory, so you must face me in combat."

"Bring it on!" Mantarou snapped, holding up his fists. He had no problem fighting a guy who looked like a flower. This guy was nothing in the kid's eyes.

Forestman then changed his arm into a series of vines and whipped them at nearby trees. Mantarou was frightened when these mere vines managed to slice right through the trees and chopped them up seconds later. How could a rounded object do that?

Either way, the wood was used to create the ring as Forestman entered saying, "This is known as a wood mat. It is a bit harder than your usual mat and if you slam into it, it could give you a splinter."

Mantarou was wetting himself now. It shot up like a sprinkle while the kid trembled.

"Come on," Forestman said, "Where was that confidence? You are Kinniku Mantarou, aren't you? I've heard so many great things about you. Don't disappoint me."

Mantarou then gulped and entered the ring, the ropes made from vines, and thought, 'If Meat was here, he'd probably tell me that Forestman is trying to psyche me out. This guy's a flower… he can't possibly be that bad.'

Forestman reached his vine over towards a stump and slapped it, signaling that the match was to begin. Mantarou spared no time as he rushed at Forestman and punched the flower hard in the face.

Forestman attempted to grab Mantarou, but the kid easily leapt over his head, foot raised and slammed it right into Forestman's skull.

Sadly, the flower didn't seem to take much pain from this as he grinned saying, "The pedals surrounding my head help to soften the blow directed towards the areas where they are located. Your kick did next to nothing."

Mantarou's eyes went wide again as Forestman transformed his arms into vines once again, wrapping them around Mantarou and squeezing him.

"I didn't think this match would end so quickly," Forestman said, but then he noticed something odd. His vines started to wither as he quickly retracted them.

"Something damage my vines," he stated retracted them back to looking like hands, "The only things that can do that are extreme heat and noxious gas."

Mantarou rubbed the back of his head, feeling rather embarrassed as he said, "Sorry, I farted."

Forestman gritted his teeth and went in to get his vengeance, but Mantarou managed to find an opening and lifted up the flower for a German suplex. Forestman groaned as his neck slammed hard against the wood floor.

Mantarou grinned and said, "I knew there was no way a girly flower could defeat me."

These very words tore through Forestman's soul. That remark hurt his feelings a lot.

His past came back to him as a flashback started up.

We now take you to Forestman when he was in Kindergarten. It was his first day in class and all seemed to go well until one kid stared at him strangely.

He pointed at the flower kid and said, "Nice costume."

Forestman, not really taking any offense to this, smiled and replied, "Thanks, but it's not a costume."

He wished he hadn't said that as these very words started an uproar from his classmates. From that moment on, all throughout grade school, he was picked on for being different. He wasn't allowed to play games with other kids or even socialize because he was just 'too weird'.

One day, during the third grade, he sighed and thought, 'Maybe I should just kill myself and help rid the world of freaks like me.'

Suddenly, a little girl sat next to him crying. She didn't seem to notice Forestman there.

Forestman didn't want her to see him, but he couldn't handle to see a girl cry.

"What's wrong?" he asked as the girl looked up, ignoring his odd appearance completely and replied, "My jumping rope scraped against a jagged piece of wood and snapped in half!"

Forestman thought about what he could do about this, then he smiled and transformed his index finger into a vine.

"You could use my finger as a jump rope," he suggested as the girl's eyes sparkled.

Unexpectedly, she embraced him and sniffed, "Thank you so much!"

After an hour of playing jump rope using Forestman's finger, the two sat by a Cliffside looking at the sunset.

"I'm Jenny," the girl said as Forestman looked at her and asked, "Are you at all afraid of my appearance?"

Jenny shook her head and replied, "I was taught not to judge one by how he looks on the outside. You may look weird on the outside, but you're very nice on the inside. Besides, I like sunflowers."

Forestman let down tears of joy and said, "My name is Forestman."

And their happiness lasted all throughout Elementary into Middle school and even made it all the way to high school. No one had a problem with the two being together and their great friendship was becoming a romantic relationship.

"Just imagine it," Forestman said, just a day before the finals, "We'll be in college soon together…"

Jenny nodded and simply smiled under Forestman abruptly said, "Let's get married when we're 18."

Jenny's eyes were wide from shock. Was Forestman serious about this?

"Wow, I didn't know you felt that way about me," she replied as Forestman placed a hand on her shoulder and said, "You're the only one who ever cared about me. You gave me a reason to live. You make me the happiest mutant on earth."

How could Jenny say no to such nice words? She wiped a tear from her eye and said, "Yes, once we're done college, we'll get married."

Forestman had no idea how it happened, but as Jenny crossed the street to head on home to study for the finals, some trucker was driving along, obviously too drunk to be driving. He failed to notice the girl in front of him and rather than slowing down, he continued.

All that was heard from Jenny was a scream seconds before the truck smashed into her and she was rushed to the hospital.

The doctors did all they could to try and bring her back to health, but after 5 days, Jenny died and the doctors hadn't even come close to making a breakthrough.

Forestman's world had ended, at least in his mind. How could life be so cruel to him? Jenny was the only human being who accepted him for what he was, a mutated plant creature.

If he couldn't have a friend in the world, what was the point of treating people with respect? It was from this point on that Forestman forgot all about a high-paying job and a nice future and redirected his goal to making mankind suffer for all its cruelty.

Now that our flashback is over, let's get back to what all Ultimate Muscle fans want to see.

"DON'T EVER INSULT MY APPEARANCE!!!!" Forestman snapped as his body started to transform. It had changed from that of a sunflower to that of a rose. It was still green, only now his body had thorns all over it. His head was also that of a rose, only it was sideways so you could actually see his face.

Mantarou was now frightened again as fire burned within Forestman.

"I am going to make you suffer beyond all imagination!!!" he shouted as he wrapped his arms and legs around Mantarou's body.

Mantarou screamed in agonizing pain while the thorns just jammed themselves into his flesh. What was the kid to do about this? He was trapped… how could he get out of this without Meat's advice?

But as it seemed like he was simply being stabbed to death, Forestman continued his assault as he leapt high into the air, releasing his grip while blood poured from Mantarou's body.

He then clutched onto the kid, flipping him upside down, jamming thorns into Mantarou's lower body and legs with the held of his torso and arms. He also trapped Mantarou's head between his knees, forcing thorns into the side of his mask, creating small holes in it.

"THORN PILEDRIVER!!!!" Forestman screamed as he slammed Mantarou's head hard into the mat.

He then released his hold on Mantarou and breathed heavily, blood trickling down Mantarou's body. This was some of the worst pain the kid had ever felt as he just lay there, barely conscious enough to breathe.


	3. Chapter 3

Rescue Rinko from the Demon Choujin

All seemed lost now. Mantarou had no one around to give him motivation as he just lay there. He had taken in one of the most devastating attacks he had ever had to endure.

Forestman just looked down at him and grunted saying, "This isn't satisfying enough!"

That said, he stomped his foot on Mantarou's face repeatedly shouting, "LET'S SEE HOW YOU LIKE LOOKING LIKE A FREAK!!!!"

Mantarou couldn't believe the dishonor being shown here. His opponent was attacking him while he was down.

Then the kid remembered why he was in this match in the first place. He had to save Rinko.

Mantarou lifted up two arms grabbing Forestman's ankle. He winced when the thorns on the ankle pierced through the flesh on his hands, but he ignored the pain as he flipped the flower man onto his back.

Forestman couldn't believe this. How could Mantarou get up after that? Maybe this was the burning inner strength he had heard about.

Sadly, Mantarou had little energy to spare. He had lost a lot of blood from that last move and was breathing heavily, barely managing to stand.

When Forestman rose to his feet, he grimaced and said, "Next time I knock you out, you had better stay down!"

"Is this about the flower man remark!?" Mantarou asked, fear overcoming him once again, "Look, I'm terribly sorry for that comment. It was very rude of me."

Forestman was silent for a while and looked down, arms folded, then he looked up and retorted, "NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!!" sending his arm towards the kid's face.

But Mantarou saw an opening and thought of what Meat would suggest at a time like that. He simply bent down avoiding the arm coming back his face and grabbed onto Forestman's legs. Once again, the thorns caused his hands pain, but he ignored it as best as he could pushing forward and causing Forestman to fall forward, now mounted on Mantarou's back.

With that, Mantarou leapt high into the air, flipping his opponent's body in front of him, the thorns still digging into his hands. Then he placed his feet hard against Forestman's arms and aimed Forestman's head towards the mat.

"KINNIKU DRIVER!!!!" he yelled as he drove Forestman's head hard into the mat.

He finally let go, blood trickling down his hands as he breathed heavily. Now Forestman was down.

'What was up with that?' Mantarou thought, 'He turned from calm to psychotic just like that. Maybe…'

Then it hit the kid. Maybe Forestman was picked on as a child. Maybe the other forest people he grew up around considered him weaker than them. Yes, Mantarou wasn't always the smartest when it came to theories of other choujins' behavior, so he didn't know that Forestman grew up around humans.

He'd have thought this over further had his opponent not regained consciousness, eyes glowing red. Mantarou trembled, backing up into the ropes and freaking out while Forestman slowly used his arms to push himself up into a sitting position. Then he grunted as he managed to support himself up, looking in surprisingly good condition considering what move he had just taken in.

Mantarou was more frightened than ever before as Forestman transformed his body into a wooden model of a human body, only he had tree leaves as hair and a bird's nest as a shoulder guard.

"Kinniku Mantarou," Forestman said, "you have proven yourself to be a strong adversary, but you are not good enough to match blows with me."

With that, he sent a karate chop to Mantarou's face. Since he was now made of wood, it was slightly stronger than a regular chop. Then he held Mantarou's face and slammed the face into his knee.

Mantarou's nose was now bleeding as he struggled to stay up.

"WHY WON'T YOU GO DOWN!!!??" Forestman spat as he wrapped his arms around the kid for a bear hug.

But Mantarou wasn't going to let this villain walk all over him anymore. He gritted his teeth as a mark appeared on his forehead. This red mark was the kanji for "Kinniku" and whenever this appeared, Mantarou would get a great burst of power.

Forestman was alarmed when he saw the legendary Kin mark but couldn't react as Mantarou lifted him up above his head. He then forced Forestman's legs into a splits formation and leapt high into the air. He had set Forestman up for the legendary Kinniku Buster, one of the Kinniku family's strongest finishing moves.

But his descent was cut short as Forestman spat, "YOU ARE NOT GETTING THE BETTER OF ME!!!"

That said, his body transformed back to that of a sunflower, much to Mantarou's surprise. Since it had been quite a while, Forestman's vines had returned to good health as they formed. Since the vines were ten times longer than his usual fingers, he was able to have them grab onto Mantarou's arms and pry them off of his legs.

Then he flipped Mantarou's body over, setting the boy up for a piledriver.

Mantarou's head hit the mat hard as he coughed up more blood. The Kin mark also started to vanish from his forehead as he just barely managed to maintain consciousness.

"You will never understand the pain and suffering I had to deal with!" Forestman snapped, "You don't know what it's like to spend your life laughed at for being different!"

Then it hit Mantarou. The reason for Forestman's behavior wasn't ridicule from his own kind. It was discrimination shown to him by humans.

But nevertheless, Mantarou had been ridiculed by his own people many times. He had been laughed at repeatedly for being an individual with different visions, made fun of for his occasionally clumsy nature and feared because of his mask. Did that lead him to start harming innocent people? No, and while Forestman's suffering was understandable, his actions were not.

The mark appeared once more as Mantarou slowly rose to his feet, Forestman gritting his teeth.

"I TOLD YOU TO STAY DOWN!!!" he spat as he started whipping Mantarou with his vines.

The kid simply lifted up his arms as the flesh started to cut open like trees had. But despite this pain, Mantarou ignored it.

"I'M GOING TO CHOP YOUR HEAD OFF!!!!" Forestman spat, but just as he came close, Mantarou grabbed onto all of his vines and crushed them against his hands.

"You will do nothing of the sort!" Mantarou snapped as he reeled Forestman towards him and punched the villain in the face.

He then hurled Forestman high into the air and leapt up at him, holding onto Forestman's legs.

"I understand that your past was painful!" Mantarou shouted as he wrapped his legs around Forestman's head, trapping his body in place, "Think about it! Does harming those who made you miserable make you any better than them!!??"

Forestman had to admit, Mantarou had a point. A tear went down his face as Mantarou descended toward the mat shouting, "MUSCLE GRAVITY!!!!" slamming the villain's head hard into the wooden mat.

Now Forestman's neck was covered with splinters as the part of the mat surrounding his head cracked open from the impact. Forestman was now unable to move as he lay there and uttered the words, "You have won, Kinniku Mantarou…"

Mantarou's eyes sparkled as he smiled and let down tears of joy. He had so many doubts during that match, but in the end, he pulled through like he normally did. He was just about to get up and leave when he heard a sound.

It was Forestman saying, "Thank you, Mantarou," in a quiet voice.

Soon, Mantarou found himself back in the dark world as the cloaked figure appeared and said, "I must admit, I'm impressed you made it out alive. Unfortunately for you, that was only round 1."

Suddenly, Mantarou's wounds open up again as he fell to the ground on his hands and knees, coughing up a bit of blood. He couldn't believe this. After that long match, his body was too weak to continue.

"What's wrong?" the cloaked figure asked as Mantarou let down tears, feeling sorry for himself for failing to save Rinko.

But just as all seemed lost, he noticed 6 figures leap into the scene as his eyes widened with shock.

The cloaked figure rose an eyebrow asking, "Who are these people?"

Mantarou recognized them all. There were the 3 I had already described, Seiuchin, Gazelleman and Terry the Kid along with 2 others who I haven't described yet.

One was a king of sorts. He dressed with a mantle over his back and wore a red T-shirt and red pants. Along with his king-like head that had a mask over his eyes and a crown along with red hair, he also had 2 chess pieces on his shoulders. One was a rook, which looked like a castle, and the other was a knight, which was shaped more like a knight's horse. This was Checkmate.

The other wore a trench coat over a black T-shirt along with black pants and blue boots. He also wore a blue mask over his face, only showing blond locks of hair. This man was Mantarou's rival, Kevin Mask.

But among them, which caused Mantarou to let down a tear of joy, was his trainer, Meat.

"HOW DID YOU GET IN HERE!?" the cloaked figure snapped, "The gate should have closed the second Mantarou entered!"

"I kept it open for us," Gazelleman explained cracking his knuckles as Meat gasped, running over to Mantarou's barely conscious body.

"What happened?" Meat asked with worry as Mantarou grinned and said, "I defeated one of that guy's lackeys, no big deal."

Then he coughed up a bit of blood while Meat started to worry more and asked, "Why are you all here?"

"We came to save your sorry ass," Terry replied, "When Meat told us you were risking your life to save Rinko, we had to come and help."

"You're our friend, Mantarou-san," Seiuchin said, nodding his head and letting down tears, "We would never abandon you in your time of need."

"But why is Kevin here?" Mantarou asked as Kevin replied, "The same reason Checkmate is here. We both sensed that something was wrong and insisted on helping. But don't get any ideas. I am only doing this to prove that I am still the best of the best."

Mantarou let down tears of joy as he said, "You guys are the best."

"Don't blubber like a baby, Mantarou," Terry remarked, "We're best friends, and we look out for each other."

"Well, since you are here," the cloaked figure said, "I'll allow you to help. You will take on my four remaining servants, the Demon Choujin!"

This was his first time saying that term. Meat's eyes went wide with fear as he uttered, "D-did you say… D-demon Choujin?"

"Yes, you heard correct," the man laughed as he said, "Now, pick your opponents."

He directed them towards the four doors, each one inviting.

"I choose the one with the dessert skull!" Terry shouted as he quickly ran through the door without a second thought.

Seiuchin and Gazelleman looked at one-another, nodding, as Gazelleman chose the door with the eyeball and Seiuchin chose the one with the lightning rod.

Checkmate then realized there were only 2 doors left as Kevin placed a hand on the king's shoulder saying, "You go through the last door. I want to take on their leader."

The cloaked figure hadn't considered this option.

He grinned under his cloak and said, "Alright, I guess I am due for some fun."

That said, he whipped off his cloak to reveal a very threatening-looking man indeed. He had a body similar to that of a dragon, only he also wore red armor all around his body.

"I am known as Judas," he stated, "I'm glad the Choujin Olympics champion decided to face me, otherwise I would feel very disappointed!"

(Yes, despite what the anime might tell you, Kid Muscle actually loses the Choujin Crown/Olympics. The anime had a different ending because due to the fact that the Japanese hated the edits made to the anime, it was cancelled before the Demon Seed arc. Anyway, don't forget to R&R, okay?)


	4. Chapter 4

Rescue Rinko from the Demon Choujin

Before the match could begin, Judas pressed a button bringing up a 4 screens. Each one showed the other choujins where they ended up. Terry was in a desert in search of an opponent, and since he grew up in Texas, he was able to ignore the tremendous heat. Gazelleman was in an area with a lot of torches, walls and scriptures. Clearly, this was the inside of a pyramid. Seiuchin was in a town… that's right, a simple small town. What was odd was that despite having at least 50 houses, there were no people living in this town. Finally, Checkmate was on the moon. Now that was very odd.

"You can watch the other matches on these screens," Judas explained, "Kevin, our match will begin once theirs are over."

Kevin simply folded his arms and sighed. He really wanted to take care of Judas right away instead of watching the others fight.

Terry looked high and low when suddenly, he found himself caught in a rather wet substance. He had a rather sinking feeling, and when he looked down, he realized that he really was sinking.

"OH SHIT, QUICKSAND!!!" he shouted, but try as he might, he was unable to fight it as he sunk under the sand.

"TERRY!!!" Meat and Mantarou screamed watching this scene as Judas smiled and said, "Just watch."

Meat sighed with relieve when Terry's head emerged from the quicksand, but realized what this was all about when he noticed a ring rising up as well.

A huge lump of sand was in the middle of this wrestling ring, but the sand was shaken away as another figure was revealed to be underneath.

"So, are you this Demon Choujin I'm supposed to face?" Terry asked stretching his calf muscles.

This being was not the kind Terry had not expected to find in a desert. Terry had been expecting a desert creature, but this creature looked rather odd. It had a body similar to what one would expect from an eagle, black and white feathers and all. Its lower body seemed to be that of a lion. Finally, it had the head of a bull, which was welcoming to Terry the Kid. See, bulls were the kinds of opponent he dealt with as a kid, so he felt ready for this kind of opponent.

"Hello," the creature said, folding his arms, "I am Raiwaburu."

Terry noticed the ring start to vibrate and noticed the ground under it shifting. His eyes widened when he noticed a large swirling pool appear in the sand.

"What is this?" Terry asked as Raiwaburu laughed saying, "This is known as my Quicksand Death Match. You see, this entire ring is surrounded by quicksand. Let's just say that the loser of this match will be the one who falls into it."

Terry had to admit, that scared him a bit, but he would never show fear in public. He simply folded his arms, grinned and said, "Sounds fun."

Raiwaburu signaled the start of the match when he simply charged at the boy, horns sticking out. Terry simply dodged to the side and caught the hybrid in a headlock saying, "Sorry to tell you this, but I am very experienced with fighting bulls."

"How about Eagles?" Raiwaburu remarked, but before Terry could even ask what he meant, he flew into the sky and dove down towards the mat, Terry's head aimed towards it and slamming the kid hard.

Terry got up rubbing his head and asked, "How can you fly without wings?"

"I have eagle DNA, and that is enough for me to fly," Raiwaburu said, "Though it didn't come to me naturally, I learned how to do it overtime despite my only wings being lion paws."

Raiwaburu then boosted himself off of the ropes aiming his lion feet at Terry's face, but Terry was ready this time. He grabbed the incoming legs and, much to the hybrid's surprise, he managed to slam Raiwaburu's back into the mat and grabbed onto a single ankle, twisting it with the help of his hands. This was the Spinning Toe Hold, one of Terry's favorite moves.

"Go Terry!" Mantarou cheered as Judas grinned saying, "Not bad."

On another screen, Seiuchin was searching around the small town until he noticed a big stadium. He narrowed his eyes and thought, 'If there's a wrestling ring in there, I bet that's where the Demon Choujin is.'

The walrus entered the stadium, but noticed that there was no ring there. Instead, there was some kind of machine as a man stood behind him.

"Hello," he said as Seiuchin screamed with fright, falling backwards and landing on his tush.

This man standing before Seiuchin looked like a Choujin. He had white spiky hair and wore a blue rubber suit to go with his muscular build.

He smiled and asked, "Are you, by chance, Seiuchin?"

"Yes," the walrus replied, "I am. I can't believe you heard of me!"

The walrus chuckled, blushing a little as the man gave a sympathetic smile and said, "My name is Steven. I am your opponent."

Seiuchin put on a more serious look as he said, "Alright, let's get this over with," holding up his fist.

"Seiuchin-san," Steven said, waving his hands in front of his face, "the match hasn't started yet. Please, you look hungry. Would you like something to eat?"

The walrus' serious look turned to one of surprise as he nodded happily, Steven throwing him a large tuna. This was Seiuchin's favorite food.

After the walrus stuffed his face, he bowed to Steven and said, "Thank you so very much, sir."

"I'm glad you like it," Steven replied, grinning wickedly as he pressed a button. Suddenly, the machine behind Seiuchin released a rather thick cloud that lifted both choujins off the ground and high into the sky.

Seiuchin noticed that the cloud had a rectangular shape to it and asked, "What's going on?"

"This is our ring," Steven replied, now giving a wicked smile rather than a compassionate one, "I'm glad you're well fed, because this is a cloud Death Match."

Seiuchin's eyes widened as he peered over the edge and started to panic.

"You're not afraid of heights, are you?" Steven asked as Seiuchin gulped and said, "No, but I must know; is this cloud the ring?"

Steven laughed and replied, "Why, I believe it is, Seiuchin-san!"

"Then where are the ropes?" the walrus replied with fear as Steven explained, "There are no ropes. If you make one careless mistake, you could plummet out of this very ring, and when that happens, you lose."

"You don't mean…" Seiuchin uttered, Steven laughing once more and stating, "Yes, this match won't end until someone hits the ground below with a splat!"

The walrus was in panic once more as he was now in terrible danger. But that fear soon left him. He remembered that it was his job to protect people from evil, and if he had to fight under dangerous circumstances, then so be it! He would rather die than surrender.

Mantarou watched this with a lot of fear as he said, "Seiuchin, hang in there."

"He can't hear you," Judas replied, chuckling, but Kevin budded in saying, "I see what your game is. You plan to have us all killed. That's why you allowed us to help Mantarou."

"Of course," Judas replied, "The fewer heroes we have in this world, the better it is for us villains. Besides, it's your fault for budding in where you didn't belong."

"SHUT UP!!!" Meat screamed, much to everyone's surprise, "You might think we've fallen into some kind of trap, but you don't know how strong these choujins are! No matter what you throw at us, we will never go down!"

Judas diverted his attention to Terry's screen and grinned wickedly. It seemed Terry was getting his butt kicked.

Raiwaburu had Terry on his back and was clawing at his chest with the claws on his lion feet taunting, "Are you really the son of the legendary Terryman? What a joke you are! Terryman would have put up a much better fight against me!"

"SHUT UP!!!" Terry retorted, grabbing one of Raiwaburu's feet and pushing him off, knocking the hybrid on his back, "I am 3 times better than my father ever was, and I am going to prove it!"

"Let's see you back up that claim," Raiwaburu remarked as he charged at Terry, this time faster than he'd gone the first time.

The Texan hero was unprepared for this amazing speed increase as Raiwaburu jammed his horns into the kid's shoulders and rammed up into the post.

"What are you going to do now?" the hybrid asked, grinning wickedly.

But all Terry did was smile as he remarked, "You just don't get it, do you?"

With that, he mounted placed his hands against Raiwaburu's horns and shouted, "YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME!!!"

He pushed hard onto the horns as Raiwaburu moved his legs forward, making sure to keep them in there, but Terry was using all of his might now, even surpassing his limits.

Mantarou's look of worry turned to one of hope and joy when Terry managed to pry the arms out of his shoulders. Sure, he was bleeding, but this meant nothing to a strong boy like him.

"You messed with the wrong Choujin," Terry stated as he mounted himself onto Raiwaburu's shoulders and wrapping legs around the hybrid's neck and pulling on his arm. He now had the beast in a triangle choke as Raiwaburu was in great pain.

"Do you submit," Terry asked as Raiwaburu grinned wickedly and said, "Actually, you just gave me a great opportunity."

That said, Raiwaburu charged towards another post, his whole body bent over. Sure, it caused additional pain to him, but now Terry's he was headed straight for the post.

Fortunately, Raiwaburu had made one slight miscalculation with this plan of his, but it was too late for him to realize his mistake as Terry simply let go of the hybrid's neck and arm.

Raiwaburu ended up ramming his extended arm hard into the post, dealing quite a bit of pain to it, and while he cringed, rubbing his hand to ease the pain, Terry mounted himself onto the hybrid's back and placed his shoulder up against his neck.

"This is where you finally lose!" Terry shouted as he shouted, "CALF BRANDING!!!" putting all force onto the back of Raiwaburu's neck and slamming his face hard into the mat.

"YEAH!!!" Meat and Mantarou cheered as Meat turned to Judas with a grin saying, "You see that? We already managed to defeat one of your minions."

"That's what you think…" Judas remarked as Meat turned back to the screen, eyes wide open.

While Terry was breathing hard, doing all he could to regain his strength, Raiwaburu slowly rose to his feet, glaring angrily, his eyes blood red and a huge vein on his forehead.

He let out a bull call, but Terry was too late to respond as Raiwaburu rammed his horns hard into the kid's legs.

Terry ended up flying behind Raiwaburu, reeling towards the ropes, but just as it seemed Terry was going to get a ring out, he grabbed onto the ropes with his feet and grinned saying, "It will take more than that."

Leaping off the ropes, he went in to strike the hybrid of animals, but Raiwaburu grinned, ducking his head.

As soon as Terry sailed right above his head, Raiwaburu rose up and planted his horns hard into Terry's back pushing him high up into the air, Terry landing head-first into the quicksand outside the ring.

"TERRY!!!!" Mantarou screamed, tears running down his face and panic coursing through his veins.

There was nothing the kid could do. Try as he might, Terry was in no position to fight it.

Meat, Mantarou, Kevin and Judas simply watched as Terry sunk into the quicksand, and that was it. The match was over.

"TERRY!!!!" Mantarou cried again, letting loose a series of waterworks as Meat let down tears of his own saying, "He died for our sake… he put his life at risk and failed just for us…"

This brought back painful memories to the young manager. He remembered back when the 7 Devil Choujin appeared. Sure, his body had been broken into separate pieces by Buffaloman at the time, but he had heard of how Rikishiman, Robin Mask and Warsman had all died when facing 3 of the Devil Choujin. Sure, Buffaloman revived them when it was all over, but this time… who would bring back Terry's life? There was no one with healing abilities. Terry was gone forever.

Then it hit the boy. All of the others were facing these same kinds of opponents in death matches. He became even more alarmed when he looked over at Seiuchin's screen and noticed that the walrus was caught in one of Steven's attacks.

Steven had his arms and legs wrapped around Seiuchin and was sending electricity coursing through his veins.

"I am a lightning Choujin," Steven explained while the walrus cried in deep pain, "My entire body can produce lightning at my whim!"

Meat just sniffed and asked, "Is Seiuchin going to die too?"


	5. Chapter 5

Rescue Rinko from the Demon Choujin

Seiuchin grunted as Steven continued to send volts of electricity down his spine. This was truly a terrible pain as Seiuchin was a sea creature.

"SEIUCHIN!!!!" Mantarou screamed at the top of his lungs, "PULL THROUGH, PLEASE PULL THROUGH!!!"

"He can't hear you," Judas replied, grinning wickedly, "Don't forget, what you see is merely an image on a TV screen. Nothing you say will reach his ears."

That was kind of a funny expression as Seiuchin's ears were impossible to see, but ignoring this, something strange happened as the walrus was just about to lose consciousness.

He heard a strange sound. It sounded like a strong gust of wind at first, but soon it sounded like someone's voice. Yes, he knew it well. It was Mantarou begging him to pull through.

Seiuchin gritted his teeth as he threw his arms forward, ignoring the immense pain going through him. Steven's eyes went wide as Seiuchin had successfully hurled the boy over his shoulders. Steven landed hard on his back as Seiuchin sent his leg down on the boy's neck for a guillotine drop.

"I must win for the sake of Rinko-chan and Mantarou-san!" Seiuchin stated with anger in his eyes, "You are not allowed to defeat me!"

Steven groaned in pain as the walrus used his foot to lift up his Steven's left leg and started pulling on his chin. This was his infamous submission move, the tusk hold.

"WAY TO GO, SEIUCHIN!!!" Meat shouted as Mantarou let down tears of joy.

He was still lying on the ground, mind you, but the pain was starting to finally lift. Kevin wasn't watching as he was now working out for his match with Judas. There was no way he was letting this opportunity go to waste, especially if Judas wasn't willing to fight him right then and there.

Alright, I have been neglecting the others for far too long, so let's see how they're doing, shall we?

Gazelleman had been running through the pyramid for a full half-hour now. He turned a corner with an arrow pointing left figuring that the arrows he had seen were leading him to his opponent.

Much to his dismay, he ended up in an area that felt familiar to him.

'I'm right back where I started,' he thought, and then his eyes widened as his thoughts continued, 'Maybe I should go where the arrows aren't pointing. Perhaps my opponent is in the opposite direction.'

Gazelleman charged towards a wall piece pointing right and rather than turning right like last time, he turned left. He was shocked when a trapdoor opened up under his feet and he fell through a hole in the floor.

"OH NO, NOT GAZELLEMAN TOO!!!" Meat screamed as Judas laughed and replied, "You overreact far too much, don't you?"

The screaming stopped when Gazelleman landed on a ring in the basement of the pyramid. Surrounding the ring was an assortment of spikes sticking up out of the floor. Gazelleman looked at this and figured that this must be part of the Demon Choujin's plan to defeat him.

Then his opponent finally revealed himself. This opponent wore and odd mask over his face. It wasn't necessarily a tribal mask, more like a common everyday grey mask with no visible mouth on it. Along with that was a very simple-looking body. In fact, this guy looked human. His body was a typical human body, not even all that muscular, and he was wearing a trench coat. Why this type of opponent was in a pyramid was beyond Gazelleman's comprehension.

Nevertheless, the deer could not let himself be fooled as he knew that his life was at stake.

"Hello," the man said, "My name is Pierson. I am honored to face the Hercules Factory's top student in combat."

Then he held out his hand to shake Gazelleman's. Gazelleman was a bit skeptical at first, but the gazelle saw in Pierson's eyes that the man could be trusted and shook his hand.

And much to his surprise, there were no tricks. Pierson could have easily taken advantage of this moment, but he didn't. He just shook Gazelleman's hand and let it at that.

Pierson then said, "You can begin at any time you like," as Gazelleman nodded and charged towards the man with seriousness in his eyes. He was not going to fail.

Pierson saw an immediate opening and leaned down sweeping his leg out causing Gazelleman to fall on his back. The deer had not been prepared for such a trap, though it was simple and easy to predict. He was even more surprised when Pierson sat on his back and started pulling his legs under his armpits, setting the deer up for a Boston Crab.

Gazelleman then grinned and said, "That was a nice try, but such simple and old-fashioned moves are not enough to stop me."

With that, much to Pierson's surprise, Gazelleman wiggled his legs managing to squeeze himself out of the hold, and before he got up, he lifted his legs up planting them into Pierson's chin causing some pain.

After getting up, he reached his arms around the back of Pierson's neck and started kicking the man hard in the knee. He kept it up for quite some time until Pierson winced and sent a high kick to the man's face knocking him into the post.

While Pierson's guard was down, Gazelleman charged towards him after placing a pair of antlers on his wrist. See, this was the step needed to set up the Antler Fist, Gazelleman's strongest move. It involved him using a wrist guard that had gazelle antlers attached to it to strike his opponent.

"I know how this works," Gazelleman stated, rushing towards the man, "The loser is the one who is thrown into the spikes, correct? Well, how about I hit you with a different set of spikes?"

But as Gazelleman rammed his antlers into Pierson's chest, aiming for his heart, he was shocked when the antlers couldn't come off of him. In fact, there was no blood coming down Pierson's chest either and the antlers felt like they had been lodged into a hard surface rather than human flesh.

"Surprised?" the man asked with a grin under his mask, "You see, I am not as human as I appear."

He then pried Gazelleman's antlers out of his chest and threw Gazelleman by his arm onto his back. The deer's eyes went wide as Pierson tore off his suit revealing a heavy green skin and pulled off his mask to show Gazelleman his true face. It was a frightening sight.

The man looked more like an insect than anything. His head was green with big yellow eyes and to make things more odd, his mouth was actually a pair of sharp metal pincers.

"THIS IS WHY THEY CALL ME PIERSON!!!" he shouted.

Gazelleman looked at him funny after that statement and remarked, "I don't understand… pincers only cut things in half… they don't pierce through anything."

Pierson's eyes widened as he exclaimed, "You're absolutely right! Then I take back my last statement!"

"It's too late, you already said it!" Gazelleman retorted as Pierson's eyes widened once more.

All was silent until the creature lifted up Gazelleman and placed his midsection into his pincers.

Gazelleman cried out in pain as blood started to pour from his ribs.

"I could very well cut you in two," Pierson stated with a sly look, "but instead, I'd much rather beat you according to this room's rules."

With that, he hurled his head backwards, releasing his grip on the deer. Gazelleman's eyes widened as he flew back-first into the spikes. He let out on last cry of pain until one of the spikes managed to push his heart up right out of his chest. That was it… Gazelleman was finished.

"NOOOOOO!!!!" Meat and Mantarou screamed upon seeing this sight, letting down tears as Mantarou cried, "I can't take this anymore! I don't want anymore of my friends to die for my sake!!!"

Meat angrily turned to Judas and snapped, "How could you be so heartless!? How could you allow that to happen!?"

Judas simply shrugged with a smiled and replied, "It's not my fault your friends are lousy fighters."

Mantarou wanted so much to give the dragon a piece of his mind right now, but his body was too weak and Kevin had already called dibs. All he could do was hope that the other two would come out okay.

"ICE ROCK DRIVER!!!!" Seiuchin yelled as he slammed Steven hard into the mat. This was Seiuchin's strongest attack. Only members of his family could use it.

In order to perform this move, he first threw his opponent into the air. He would then leap up towards the opponent and flip himself upside down, locking the opponent's arms with his legs and the opponent's legs with his arms. Then he would flip his body 180 degrees so the opponent's head was facing the mat and descend hard towards the ring, slamming the opponent's head into it.

He released Steven and breathed heavily saying, "You were a tough opponent, but in the end, I was victorious."

But just as Seiuchin was ready to be teleported out of this match, he heard a familiar voice ask, "Who said we were done?"

The walrus' eyes were wide open as he slowly turned around, noticing Steven getting up to his feet. He trembled with fear and backed away while Steven slowly stood back up and grinned.

"Don't forget the rules of this match," Steven said, "You haven't won until you've thrown me out of the ring."

With that, he wrapped his arms around Seiuchin, who was too spellbound to react. He then leapt high into the air shouting, "4000 VOLT DROP!!!" sending a huge electric shock down the walrus' spine and aiming his head towards the mat, slamming him hard into the surface.

Seiuchin couldn't move now. His pupils were blank as he just lay there, unable to get up.

"SEIUCHIN!!!" Mantarou cried out as Steven lifted the walrus up and held him over the edge of the square cloud and said, "Hasta lavista, Seiuchin-san."

Grinning wickedly, he released Seiuchin body as the walrus plummeted towards the ground many feet below him. It was over now. Soon, Seiuchin would hit the ground and he would be dead.

Mantarou let down more tears shouting, "JUST LET IT STOP!!!!" as Meat was in panic. Only Checkmate and Kevin were left, and who was to say they would be alive by the end of their matches? They were all throwing their lives away and it was all in vain as they had made no progress. Mantarou had to fight all of these demons no matter what.


	6. Chapter 6

Rescue Rinko from the Demon Choujin

Checkmate had been walking around the moon for hours. Now, you're probably asking yourselves how in God's name he was able to survive on the moon without a space helmet.

Well, for some odd reason, a glass dome was surrounding the moon. Checkmate assumed that the cloaked figure had simply planted the dome there so Mantarou could fight under such circumstances.

He was just about to lose hope in finding his opponent when he noticed a chunk of ground rise up in the form of a wrestling ring. The ropes surrounding it were made from space rock just like the ring itself. He simply ignored him and entered the ring awaiting his opponent.

Then something very odd happened. A series of stars started to fall towards the moon, passing right through the glass dome. Checkmate could only watch as these stars circled around each other, a body appearing within the cylindrical shape created by these specks of light.

This man who had appeared before Checkmate had a slim build and flowing white hair. He also had tattoos on his cheeks that resembled black stars. The man wore no clothing to cover his human-like chest but he wore a pair of neon-colored pants, but he had no shoes to go with it. Finally, his flesh was a pale white color.

"My name is Cosmos," the man stated as Checkmate bowed and said, "I am Checkmate. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I assume you are my opponent."

Cosmos just blinked, eyes wide and remarked, "How did you know that?" Checkmate performing a face fault.

Cosmos then held his arms out and hovered slightly off the ground and said, "Welcome to my ring. As you can see, everything, even the ropes, is made out of moon rock. That means anything you hit in this ring will deal amazing damage, so slam moves will be very hard to ignore."

"I don't care," Checkmate remarked, "To me, pain means nothing."

Now, if we were looking at an earlier Checkmate, that would be a completely true statement. When he started fighting as a villain working for a former villain named Sunshine, he had been trained to ignore all forms of pain as Sunshine considered pain a weakness. When he faced Mantarou, he was unable to feel Mantarou's attacks no matter how hard the kid tried, but in the end, his ignorance towards the fact that he was being injured led to his downfall as it eventually imploded in on him causing him to lose.

Checkmate now at least allowed himself to feel pain as it acted as a warning for him, but he didn't pay all that much mind to it being there.

Cosmos created a gavel with the stars and rose up a moon rock that was shaped like a bell and smacks the gavel up against it signaling the start of the match.

He wasted no time in charging towards Checkmate with his arms crossed and delivered a fierce blow to the king's face. Checkmate simply ignored it grabbing onto Cosmos' arms and twisting the demon's arms flipping him vertically onto his back.

"Not bad," Cosmos said, a grin going across his face as he simply rose back up, hovering an inch above the mat.

"You don't seem to realize the kind of trouble you are in," Cosmos explained, "See, I started with a simple technique to test your endurance to direct attacks… it's too bad my style isn't often direct."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN!?" Checkmate retorted, but it was too late as Cosmos started to fly around the ring with his arms out like airplane wings.

Checkmate couldn't follow the man's movements as Cosmos' arms smacked into his ribs with every trip the demon Choujin took. Checkmate then realized that there was a way around this as he closed his eyes and cancelled out all thought.

'Show yourself,' he thought as he locked in on the shockwaves created by Cosmos' movement.

He managed to grab onto Cosmos' arms as Cosmos grinned wickedly. Much to Checkmate's surprise, Cosmos shifted his position and was now mounted on the boy's back.

"That wasn't bad," Cosmos said, "but I always have a plan B."

Checkmate's eyes widened as Cosmos kicked him hard in the back sending him into the moon rock ropes. Checkmate felt a great pain on his chest and clutched onto it, kneeling down and breathing heavily.

Mantarou and Meat simply watched this scene with panic. Mantarou just couldn't watch this anymore. He didn't want Checkmate to die too.

During all of this, Kevin continued to train for his match against Judas. As the others were falling one-by-one, he needed to be ready, especially considering the fact that Judas was watching like the other 2 and not making an effort to prepare himself.

Cosmos slowly drifted towards Checkmate while the king was in pain with a wicked grin. As soon as he approached Checkmate, he wrapped his arms around Checkmate's neck.

"You have done quite enough!" Checkmate snapped as he grabbed the arm in an attempt to hurl Cosmos over his shoulder, but Cosmos uses his odd anti-gravity power to prevent himself from hitting the mat, keeping a tight, firm grip on Checkmate's arms and leaping high above the ring.

"I told you," Cosmos stated with a sly grin, "I always have a plan B!"

Checkmate knew what Cosmos was doing. The spaceman was going to flip his body 180 degrees and drive Checkmate's head into the mat. The king could not allow this.

Cosmos started to flip his body backward, lifting Checkmate over his head as Checkmate planted his feet into Cosmos' chest, causing Cosmos to let go, the spaceman's eyes widened with shock.

"CHESS PIECE CHANGE!!!" Checkmate shouted as he pressed the horse head next to him, his body transforming into that of a centaur. This was meant to represent the knight in a game of chess.

Cosmos had no way to prepare himself as Checkmate planted his hooves against Cosmos' feet and drove his head hard into the mat shouting, "HIGH HORSE DRIVER!!!"

Cosmos felt a great pain as blood started to trickle from his head. Checkmate looked down at his opponent and stated, "I knew there was a flaw with your technique. See, while you always have a plan B, the one thing you can't seem to come up with a plan C!"

Cosmos had to admit, the king was right. He spent so long relying on backup plans that he never once came up with backups for the backups themselves.

He looked back to his past when his mother used to punish him for never being able to prepare himself for when his original plans failed. As a result, he dedicated his time to coming up with ways to counter failure, a plan B that would ensure success if plan A failed.

However, he had been rather successful relying on plan B that not once did he ever think of the possibility that plan B would fail him one day, and for the first time ever, it had.

"You're right," Cosmos said slowly rising to his feet, "But I will not make such a mistake again!"

"WAY TO GO, CHECKMATE!!!" Mantarou shouted, pumping his fist in the air as Meat sighed, "Don't feel too confident about this. Don't forget that the others were killed during their moments of triumph. The same might happen to Checkmate, even if he is stronger than they were."

Just thinking of the others brought tears to the child's eyes. Meat could have dealt with them losing, but not dying. This was just too painful for him to bear.

But it wasn't just him. Mantarou was hurting much more than Meat was. These choujins were his best friends and all 3 of them had died for his sake. Why did it have to be this way? It wasn't their time, so why?

Life just wasn't fair, plain and simple. Mantarou had never been good at telling himself that, so this was hard to deal with for him.

Cosmos flew towards Checkmate against who held his arms out to grab Cosmos' arms by instinct, but Cosmos simply flipped his body over, latching his legs to Checkmate's shoulders and throwing his body forward. Now Checkmate was on his knees, upper body being pulling back with Cosmos' mighty grip.

Checkmate realized that his back would let out if he didn't get out of this, so he shifted his legs in the hopes that he could get off of his knees and spread them out, escaping from the back breaking position.

Just as it seemed his back was going to give way, he managed to release his legs from under his knees and spread them out forward so now Cosmos was only pulling on the king's arms.

Cosmos saw that this was futile, but as long as he had Checkmate's arms in his grasp, he may as well take advantage of it. He grinned wickedly, leaping into the air with Checkmate's arms still behind him, pulling Checkmate against his back. He then held Checkmate's arms like backpack straps and rose Checkmate's body up a little ways so the king's head was above his.

Then he flipped his body forward, Checkmate's head aimed towards the moon rock and shouted, "BACKPACK SLAM!!!" sending Checkmate's head hard into the mat.

As blood started to pour out of Checkmate's head, the king gritted his teeth, trying his best to ignore the pain. Cosmos simply laughed and smiled at the king.

"Why do you bother trying?" he asked, "Come on, you've already lost 3 lives. Are all these hero's lives worth one human life?"

"Wait…" Checkmate remarked, "Are you telling me my allies are dead!?"

"Oh, that's right," Cosmos said, holding a hand up to his mouth, "You weren't able to see that… oh, this must be so hard on you…"

Checkmate let down tears in response to this. To think that his own friends were dead now. But soon those tears turned to an undying fury. He wanted more than ever to win now, not only for Mantarou but for Terry the Kid, Seiuchin and Gazelleman, the 3 brave souls who died fighting for their best friend.

Checkmate angrily pressed the rook on his other shoulder shouting, "CHESS PIECE CHANGE!!!" becoming a golden castle with arms and legs.

Cosmos had no way to counter this, plan B or not. Checkmate was just too heavy as he started punching Cosmos hard in the face.

But then Cosmos, saw it, a weakness. Due to the wound he had put in Checkmate's human head earlier, his Rook form had a small crack near the top.

"Nice move," Cosmos said, "but you should have used this earlier!"

Checkmate's eyes went wide as Cosmos lifted him up, hurling him high into the air. Before this could work, Checkmate did something rather odd.

In this form, he had a very strange ability, and he was about to demonstrate it as his body separated in two, Cosmos' hands no longer grabbing onto him.

"Don't forget that I have a plan B!" he stated as he grabbed onto Checkmate's lower body.

Checkmate panicked and attempted to kick Cosmos with his lower half, but the man shifted his body to avoid it, floating above Checkmate's lower body and using Checkmate's feet to flip the rook's head towards the mat.

"ASSISTED PILE DRIVER!!!" he shouted as he using Checkmate's own lower body to slam his upper body into the mat.

The crack on his head became bigger as Checkmate returned to his king form, barely able to stand now. Cosmos laughed and said, "You have no hope left. Just surrender to the dark side. Just be glad to know that you'll be joining your friends soon."

"NO!!!" Checkmate shouted as he punched Cosmos hard in the face. But even this simple punch had taken a lot out of him as he leaned down, breathing heavily.

Cosmos flew towards the king. Now it was time for Checkmate to act fast. He couldn't allow his efforts to be in vein. The only failure he had ever accepted was his loss to Mantarou. This, however, he could not accept.

As Cosmos was ready to deliver a final strike, Checkmate felt all of his energy returning as he leaned backward, sending his feet up into Cosmos' chest and sending the spaceman high into the air.

Cosmos was ashamed of himself for falling victim to this, but when Checkmate flew up after him, he grinned wickedly saying, "Nice try."

He was about grab Checkmate's waste as the king simply became his rook form once again, separating his body and explained, "This was my plan. You have now wasted your plan B, therefore you can't come up with anything to counter this!"

But wait, Cosmos had countered this before. Surely he could a second time. Sadly, due to the fact that he had only taught himself to come up with one backup plan for every situation, he just couldn't remember what he had done before.

Checkmate rammed his head hard into Cosmos' back sending the man hard into the post shouting, "SKY ROOK TWISTER!!!" as his lower body followed, only adding to the pressure.

Blood poured out of the spaceman's mouth as his eyes rolled to the back of his head. Checkmate noticed a hole open up in the glass dome as an air current pulled Cosmos out into the atmosphere.

Checkmate watched with a grimace as Cosmos' head exploded from the lack of oxygen. It was over. Checkmate had won… but he had ended another's life.

Well, that was just how it had to be. He had to win for the sake of his friends, and if killing his opponent was the way to do it, he had no choice in the matter.


	7. Chapter 7

Rescue Rinko from the Demon Choujin

Mantarou smiled and let down tears while Meat broke out into serious waterworks. Finally, one of the heroes had won. He was just so glad that Checkmate made it out alive.

"Did you see that?" Meat asked as Judas simply grunted and said, "It doesn't matter. 3 of your friends are still dead and Mantarou has to face the 3 who killed them after my match with Kevin."

Meat's joy died when Judas said that. The dragon was right. At the time being, Checkmate's victory wasn't nearly good enough to overshadow the events that had just taken place. And if Mantarou could barely survive one demon Choujin, how could he defeat all 3 of the others without rest?

Judas finally turned his attention to Kevin and said, "I think I've left you waiting long enough," as Kevin finished one last stretch and looked at his opponent folding his arms and said, "You certainly have."

Checkmate reappeared in the dark realm as he looked around, gritting his teeth and grunted, "So it's true… the others are really dead."

Mantarou let down tears in response to this and cried, "It's just so good that you returned, Checkmate! The others died because of me!"

"Don't put yourself down," the king remarked, "Mantarou-san, they would have done it anyway. It is our job as justice choujins to defeat evil in all forms. Even if Rinko's life wasn't at stake, they would have thrown their lives away so others would be safe."

But why did it have to be that way? Mantarou had witnessed his friends lose before, but never had they truly died. This was just too much for him and he just wanted this all to end.

"KEVIN!!!" he shouted as the Kin mark appeared on his head, much to everyone's surprise, "DON'T LET HIM KILL YOU!!!"

Then the inner strength left the kid as he collapsed hard into the ground beneath him. He still hadn't fully recovered after what had been over an hour.

"Don't worry about me," Kevin replied, "Just worry about yourself for now, because after I wipe the floor with this dragon bastard, you have to defeat his minions."

"You sure are cocky," Judas remarked with a smirk, "But enough talk. Let's see you actually prove your worth."

"Gladly," Kevin replied as he pulled off his outfit to reveal a blue chest plate, blue shoulder pads and, you guessed it, blue knee pads along with boots of the same color. This was how Kevin dressed for all matches and nothing would change that.

Judas grinned and stated, "Now, we can begin," as Kevin charged at Judas.

The dragon simply dodged to the side, and considering the weight of his armor, this shouldn't have been possible.

"Nice try," Kevin said as he spun around delivering a roundhouse kick to the dragon's side, which was one of the places not protected by armor.

"The way to defeating you is easy," the masked fighter stated while Judas cringed, clutching onto his side, "All I have to do is hit you where there is no armor."

"Way to go, Kevin!" Mantarou cheered as Checkmate shook his head and said, "Don't be too confident yet."

Mantarou looked at Checkmate with a clueless look when Meat nodded and added, "It may seem that Kevin has the advantage, but don't forget, Judas has more armor than him and his body is made from scales. Scales are much harder than human flesh, so that also provides extra protection."

Now Mantarou was worried again. Sure, Kevin was a great wrestler, but could he defeat this heavily guarded dragon?

Judas threw his leg towards Kevin for a kick but Kevin easily grabbed the oncoming foot and twisted it like a corkscrew causing Judas to hesitate. He then aimed his elbow towards the dragon's face ramming it right into the beast's jaw.

Mantarou and Meat started to cheer again as Kevin simply folded his arms and said, "I must admit, this is disappointing."

Judas rubbed his jaw and grinned saying, "Well, if you wanted a bigger challenge, why didn't you say so?"

That said, the dragon's arm transformed into a tentacle as Mantarou started to panic. This was what Judas had used to prevent Rinko from escaping.

Kevin was also surprised that dragon could even perform such an ability, but he ignored it as he simply grabbed it when Judas whipped it at him.

"That was quite surprising," Kevin stated, "but it is an ability that can be easily avoided."

"Oh, is it?" Judas remarked with a wicked grin as the tentacle started to expand in length, wrapping itself around Kevin's arm.

The boy had no time to respond when Judas reeled him in delivering a hard punch to his abdomen. Kevin flinched in response and received a hard shoulder tackle to the face, falling on his back.

Then Judas leapt off the ropes and went in to slam his body atop Kevin's, but the masked boy regained focus and propelled his legs into the air, planting them hard into the dragon's belly. Luckily for Kevin, this was the only part of the front of Judas' torso that the armor didn't protect as there was a hole where the belly was. It was mostly due to a lack of materials needed to fill in that spot.

But not all was looking up as Judas smirked, ignoring the pain in his belly completely and finishing off his attack, crushing Kevin's body and bending his knees in the process.

"How stupid you are," Judas taunted, getting back to his feet, "Had you not attempted that bone-headed move, your legs wouldn't have been hurt in the process."

Mantarou just stared, wide-eyed as Judas grinned wickedly at him as if to say 'It's over'. But there was no way that single move could have crippled Kevin. This boy had survived far worse than a heavily-armored body falling on him.

And this was proven when Kevin slowly rose back to his feet, ignoring the sharp pain in his legs and asked, "Who said I had been defeated?"

Judas gritted his teeth as the masked boy stated, "I finally figured it out, you monster. I've spent the entire match thinking that the only way I could defeat you was by attacking the spots without armor on them, but it seems that there is a reason why you don't protect those areas. They are the strongest points on your body."

"Bravo," Judas replied, clapping his hands slowly with a grin while Meat was even more afraid after hearing this, "What exactly do you plan to do about this?"

Kevin said nothing and simply propelled himself off the ropes landing a hard kick to the armor surrounding Judas' chest.

"I see," Mantarou stated, "All Kevin has to do is break Judas' armor so he can access his weak points!"

"That's all well and good," Checkmate replied, "but you make it sound too easy."

"He's right," Meat replied, Mantarou looking dumbfounded again, "Judas' armor is very tough, so Kevin needs to put a lot of force into his attacks if he wanted to break it."

This was a very true statement. Sure, Kevin knew how to defeat his opponent, but would it really be that easy? Breaking armor was much easier said than done.

Kevin started dealing a series of kicks to Judas' armor, but the dragon felt no pain as he simply grabbed Kevin's leg asking, "Had enough?"

"Not quite," Kevin replied as he took advantage of this, flipping his body so he was upside down behind Judas, clutching onto his torso. He then shifted his weight as hard as he could causing the two to switch position, Judas' helmet being driven into the mat and Kevin's arms and legs wrapped around his body and pulling inwards to apply more pressure to the armor.

"WAY TO GO, KEVIN!!!" Mantarou cheered while Meat simply smiled and said, "It looks like he might win this after all."

But Judas was still grinning. It seemed as if those attacks had done nothing to his armor at all.

He placed his hands against the mat and lifted his body up, Kevin still pressing hard on the dragon's upper body. Then Judas allowed his body to collapse, slamming Kevin's back hard against the mat.

Judas then took advantage of this position and wrapped his legs around Kevin's neck, holding Kevin up in a handstand position.

"This move might seem familiar to you," the dragon said with a grin as Kevin's eyes widened. There was no way this dragon could possibly know his father; Robin Mask's finishing move… was there?

The dragon leapt into the air, flipping his body upward and wrapping his body around Kevin waste them aimed Kevin's legs towards the mat, his own legs still wrapped around Kevin's neck. He then descended towards the mat slamming Kevin's neck hard into the canvas shouting, "ROBIN SPECIAL!!!!"

Kevin felt great pain, blood spraying up out of the eye holes on his mask and lay on the mat, unable to move. The blood that hadn't gone through his mask simply trickled down his chin as Meat started to panic again.

"This is horrible!" Meat cried as Mantarou, eyes wide shouted, "KEVIN!!!!"

He really wished he could help. However, Checkmate was calm. Did he know something the others didn't?

"Now that Kevin's unable to move," Judas said, "I think it's about time he finally got what he deserved and just died."

Judas then pointed two of his fingers outward and aimed them towards Kevin's ribs, but just as he was about to jam them into Kevin's flesh, the boy's eyes opened wide and Kevin grabbed his wrist.

"WHAT!?" Judas spat as Kevin threw his body upwards, mounting himself atop Judas' shoulders. He then raised his arms into the air and slammed his elbows hard into the dragon's helmet as hard as he could. Sure, it dealt some minor pain to his elbows, but this was nothing to him.

"This is a move my trainer, Warsman, taught me!" Kevin exclaimed while Meat simply let down a tear of happiness. This was a move that Warsman, a first generation 'Fighting Computer' had used against Kinnikuman in the final round of the Choujin Olympics.

Finally, after all this effort, cracks had started to appear on Judas' helmet, but the dragon gritted his teeth and shouted, "THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH TO KEEP ME DOWN!!!" grabbing onto Kevin's legs and leaning backwards, planting Kevin's neck into the mat for an incomplete suplex.

Kevin had released his move, this much was true, but he was just glad to have finally made some progress. If he could keep this up, Judas would be wide open for his strongest moves.

But Judas had other plans as he grabbed hold of Kevin and hurled the boy high into the air. He then leapt up towards him saying, "You've had your fun, but now it's my turn to shine!"

Meat started to panic again while Checkmate remained calm. There was no way Kevin would be caught in such a simple attempt at a finishing move.

Truer words had never been spoken by yours truly as Kevin used his legs to grab Judas' shoulders. Judas' eyes went wide as Kevin used this as an opportunity to flip the dragon's body over, his legs now wrapped around Judas' neck. He then placed a hand firmly against the middle of the dragon's lower body and another around his waste.

Finally, he shouted "BIG BEN EDGE!!!!" slamming Judas's helmet hard into the mat.

Meat and Mantarou both broke out into heavy cheering, even Checkmate going all-out as the crack in Judas' helmet gradually got bigger. Then the crack moved to the rest of his armor until the whole plate shattered into little pieces, Judas' entire body now exposed.

Judas had long black flowing hair growing atop his head and his build was quite average in terms of width and height. As predicted, he had green scales surrounding a white mid-section. He had no tail and the way his legs looks was also pretty predictable, so you can already imagine what they looked like.

Judas was still grinning as he slowly rose to his feet, Kevin tilting his head to the side asking, "Why are you so satisfied?"

"Do you know what you've done?" Judas asked, "That armor was hiding my true power!"

"WHAT!?" Mantarou and Meat spat as Checkmate gritted his teeth and grunted, "I should have known..."

Kevin was simply spellbound when Judas started to run twice as fast as before, circling around him at an alarming rate. He then wrapped his arms around Kevin and uttered, "You forgot to let me finish this move earlier."

With that, he hurled Kevin high above the ring and leapt up at him, grabbing a hold of Kevin's legs and twisting them. He then started to spin Kevin's body like a twister, flipping over and aiming Kevin's head towards the mat. But it wasn't over as Judas opened his mouth and bit into Kevin's feet, only adding to the pain.

He then shouted between clenched fangs, "TWISTER FROM HELL!!!!" resuming the spinning to Kevin's body, the blood from the boy's feet now spraying like a whirlpool and sent Kevin's head hard into the mat, his blood flying all over the place and raining down on those watching.

Mantarou let down a tear as 5 droplets splashed on his forehead. Meat was unable to react as 3 droplets go on his big glasses, which looks more like large eyeballs than actual glasses. Checkmate simply bit his lip, anger filling his soul while 7 droplets fell on his chest.

But not all was over. Kevin was not dead yet, so there was still one thing left to do.

"Now, are you going to be a good little boy and stand still?" Judas asked with a smirk as he receive no answer and said, "I'll take that as a yes."

He then lifted his right claws and jammed them into Kevin's rips. The boy's eyes opened momentarily so he could utter the words, "Good luck… Mantarou-san…" then his face became emotionless and his body was no longer moving. It was official. Kevin was dead.

"NOOOOO!!!!" Mantarou cried, getting up to his feet, anger and hatred burning within him, "JUDAS, I AM GOING TO KICK YOUR ASS!!!!!"

Judas simply grinned wickedly, folding his arms and said, "Good to see that you've made a perfect recovery, Kinniku Mantarou."


	8. Chapter 8

Rescue Rinko from the Demon Choujin

Meat simply looked at Mantarou with amazement as the kid stood tall and proud, a fierce fire surrounding him. After what had happened, Mantarou was absolutely outraged. He wasn't going to stop until Judas had been defeated and revenge had been exacted.

"Mantarou-san," Judas said with a grin, "don't look at me as if you're going to face me right away. Don't forget that you have to defeat the others as well."

Mantarou blinked with a clueless look. How had he forgotten that so quickly? Nevertheless, he went back to his serious look and shouted, "BRING IT ON!!!"

"Your spirit is admirable," the dragon replied as the 3 remaining doors appeared, "Since I'm such a nice guy, I will allow you to choose your own opponent."

Mantarou glared towards the door with the desert skull on it. Terry was the first to go down, so Mantarou was determined to avenge his death first before any others.

He sped through the door as Meat shouted, "MANTAROU, WAIT!!!" but the door closed the second Mantarou opened it.

Meat couldn't believe this. He had gone to all the trouble of coming here and he couldn't even help his student. Mantarou was almost a lost puppy without Meat's advice, so this was going to be a serious challenge.

As soon as Mantarou entered the area, he was surprised to find himself on a ring not in the middle of a desert, but in the pyramid dungeon. He looked around as a familiar demon entered. It was Pierson and this made Mantarou cringe.

"Wait, I entered the door leading to Raiwaburu," Mantarou stated, "What am I doing here?"

"We couldn't allow you to be too prepared for us," Pierson explained, "so Judas switched the symbols above the doors. And since my match was short compared to the others, you haven't seen much from me."

This was very true. But Mantarou had seen enough. He had witnessed Pierson's pincers that represented his mouth. All he needed to know was that this was the very move he needed to look out for.

He then noticed something odd and looked back and forth asking, "Where is Meat-kun?"

"Didn't anyone tell you?" Pierson remarked, "Meat is not allowed to help you. Only one Choujin may enter a room at a time."

Meat simply heard these words while the match was broadcast on the little TV and his eyes went wide. This was scary. Mantarou had never been all that good without help from the outside.

Nevertheless, Mantarou was very determined and ignored Meat's absence. He knew that Meat was at least watching him and that was enough.

Pierson grinned saying, "The match can begin at any time," and Mantarou glared.

Pierson then blinked and said, "Come on, you can make the first move. I insist. I think you deserve it after such a tragedy took place here."

This was true. Mantarou could still see Gazelleman's dead body lying within the spike pit. It was very disturbing.

He took this opportunity, but not trusting his opponent's sudden kindness, he slid underneath Pierson standing up behind him. Then he reached his arms around the demon's chest and lifted him up for a suplex, slamming his neck hard into the mat.

Before Pierson could even react, the kid lifted him up by the shoulder, squeezing hard into it injuring the bone slightly, and spun his body around hurling the demon into the post.

"After the way you demons killed my friends, I am showing no mercy!" Mantarou spat, "You will suffer the same amount of pain my friends had to deal with!"

Meat and Checkmate both cheered as Mantarou went in to deal a punch to Pierson's face, but before he could even realize how stupid this was, Pierson's pincers opened up and clamed down on his incoming fist. The kid screamed with pain as the demon removed the pincers, grabbing onto Mantarou's arms and hurling the kid over his shoulder and into the post.

"My, how rash we are today," the demon said with a grin, "You should have been more careful."

Mantarou noticed that Pierson just stood there as if allowing him to get up. What was with this guy? Even when his cover was blown, he still put up a nice guy routine. Was this guy really trying to fool Mantarou or was he bipolar?

Nevertheless, the kid was not going down so easily. He needed to strategize, though. He couldn't allow himself to fall victim to the pincers. Remember when I said Mantarou would occasionally have intelligent moments? Let's just say this was one of them.

After a while, Pierson sighed and said, "I tire of waiting," and charged at the kid, pincers ready. Mantarou then saw it, an opening.

Just as Pierson was about ready to hit him, he ducked down and reached for his legs, but was shocked when a metal claw rose up out of the demon's knee and slammed itself up against his right hand. The right knee then sprouted a second claw, hitting against Mantarou's left hand and forth the two hands together as blood flew out.

Mantarou quickly pulled his arms out, scraping them in the process, and held tightly onto his hands, the gloves now ripped in half with a look of disbelief. He had no comments for this.

"Are you surprised?" Pierson asked, "I have pincers on my knees as well, but they only show themselves when I truly need them."

Mantarou backed off as the pincers retracted into Pierson's knees as the demon just smiled wickedly. What kind of opponent was this?

"This is really bad," Meat said, "He has pincers in other parts of his body. For all we know, he might not even have a weak spot."

"I expect Mantarou to think that, but not you, Meat," Checkmate remarked as Meat just looked at him dumbfounded, the king explaining, "Mantarou was able to grab onto Pierson's upper body with ease. That is his weak point."

"It makes sense," Meat said, Judas just grinning, keeping quiet during all of this, "but something I must know is… why didn't he use his knee pincers to stop Gazelleman's knee kicks?"

"I know the answer," Judas stated, "He didn't use them because he knew he wouldn't need them in order to defeat Gazelleman because he knew Gazelleman was too weak to do any real damage."

Meat started to fume at the head. He was tired of this guy and his smug attitude.

"YOU TAKE THAT BACK!!!" Meat snapped as Judas laughed and replied, "If Gazelleman was stronger, he'd have lasted so much longer."

Meat couldn't believe it. Judas kind of had a point there. It was flawed, but it wasn't a bad point.

Mantarou was scared again as Pierson charged towards him with his pincers out, but the kid managed to grab onto the demon's pincers stopping him in his tracks. But just as it seemed he had the advantage, Pierson grinned and whipped his head to the side sending Mantarou into the ropes.

As Mantarou bounced off the ropes, panicking and looking for a way to stop himself, Pierson opened up his pincers and latched them to Mantarou's ribs. The kid cried out in pain as Pierson leaned back and lifted Mantarou up, head towards the mat.

"SUPLEX CLUTCH!!!" the demon shouted slamming Mantarou's head hard into the mat, causing more blood to drip from his ribcage from the pressure applied.

Mantarou let down tears thinking, 'I should just give up… my life is too precious.'

"PIERSON!!!" Mantarou shouted as the demon released his hold on the kid and asked, "What is it, Mantarou-san."

'This is it,' Mantarou thought, struggling to stay up and clutching onto his bleeding ribs, 'All I need to do is say the words 'I give up'.'

"I…" Mantarou started as Pierson listened with anticipation, but just as Mantarou was about to say the words, he stopped mid-sentence and thought, 'If I do this, Rinko will be Judas' prisoner forever and my friends' deaths will have been in vein.'

"I WILL NEVER SURRENDER TO YOU DEMON CHOUJIN SCUM!!!" Mantarou snapped as Pierson's eyes widened.

The Kin mark appeared on Mantarou's head and that meant Pierson was in trouble. The demon attempted to clamp his pincers around Mantarou only to have the kid grab them and keep them from closing in on him. He then lifted Pierson up above his head for a back drop and slammed the demon hard on the top of his head.

"WAY TO GO, MANTAROU!!!" Meat cheered as Checkmate grimaced. He had a bad feeling about this. It just seemed too good to last.

Mantarou noticed Pierson rising to his feet and shouted, "STAY DOWN!!!" kicking the demon in the head. Nevertheless, Pierson continued to rise.

"COME ON, STAY DOWN!!!" Mantarou shouted delivering another kick to his head. But Pierson refused to let it get to him as Mantarou proceeded to slamming his fist into the monster's skull.

But Pierson ignored each and every blow, standing up fully as if Mantarou had done nothing to him, eyes now blood red.

"You are very irritating, Kinniku Mantarou!" he snapped as Mantarou started to tremble with fear, the Kin mark leaving him.

With that, Pierson opened his pincers latched them to Mantarou's neck. Mantarou cried in pain, barely able to breathe as the pincers pinched hard.

Meat stared at this with horror as did Checkmate as he shouted, "If this keeps up much longer, Mantarou will be headless!"

"I expected much more from Kinnikuman Mantarou," Judas said, "I must admit, I am impressed that he brought out Pierson's demonic side, though."

"Demonic side?" Meat asked as Judas nodded and stated, "It's a long story."

Pierson felt he had applied enough pressure, Mantarou relieved to see that Pierson wasn't going to slice off his neck. But it was scared again when Pierson unleashed the pincers in his knees, locking Mantarou's legs in place.

With that, he reached his arms around Mantarou's, locking those in place and leapt high into the air, flipping his body 180 degrees and aiming Mantarou's head towards the mat shouting, "CLAMPS FROM HELL!!!" slamming the kid hard into the mat.

Blood flew from the kid's neck and legs as Mantarou coughed up a bit of blood, lying on the mat barely conscious.

"How did he get to be this psychotic?" Meat asked as Judas said, "You'll know… in the next chapter."

(Yeah, the manga occasionally breaks the forth wall)


	9. Chapter 9

Rescue Rinko from the Demon Choujin

It was a good 16 years ago when Pierson was born. His mother was a human but his father was an insectoid. This meant he was part man, part insect. Both were worried about how their son would turn out. They really wanted him to be public schooled.

If he ended up a human, this would be no problem. Even a 6-armed human would have been okay. But sadly, he was born with the look of a 2-armed stag beetle. His parents could not allow this.

So they whipped up a disguise to make him look like a human. They made for him human clothes to hide his bug exterior and formed a mask to hide his bug face from the public eyes. It worked wonders as Pierson himself grew up thinking he was a human, his parents not wanting to tell him the horrid truth.

Sure, he was slightly disappointed that he never got an ounce of his father's DNA in him, at least to the best of his knowledge, but he enjoyed being human.

You're probably wondering why no one questioned him wearing a mask in class. See, Pierson's parents were well aware of the history behind the Kinniku Family and decided to take advantage of this. They simply stated that it's the law of their religion that Pierson wear a mask. They said it must be before adulthood to get around the fact that neither of them wore a mask. And the catch was that if he were to ever remove the mask and let people see his face, God would punish him with death.

See, such a religion did not exist, only a tradition among the princes of the Kinnikuman family. But the story checked out the schools accepted it. They were to respect the students and no matter how ridiculous the idea sounded, they agreed to allow Pierson to wear his mask to school.

Kids were jealous of him and thought his mask was cool, wishing they could wear masks in class. Some even tried to convert themselves to this "religion" but their parents wouldn't allow them.

All seemed well until one fateful day. On this day, Pierson was playing Dodgeball with the other kids when one smacked him hard in the gut. The force sent him far back as he fell on his butt, but worst of all, his mask came off.

The kids gasped and panicked, fearing that their friend would be punished by God, and when they looked upon his real face, they thought he had been punished. That was until one kid stepped up and said, "Hey, the punishment was supposed to be death, not a deformity!"

'Deformity?' Pierson thought as he looked in the school fountain and saw the face the mask had hidden. Now he knew why his parents had hidden his face. He was a monster.

The kids are laughed at him and taunted him just because he was so different. This was the worst thing that could ever happen to Pierson.

But it got worse when one kid walked over to Pierson and pushed him onto his back saying, "My parents told me that your kind is known as evil choujins! We're going to make sure you don't kill us by killing you!"

Suddenly, a deep anger filled Pierson's soul. How dare they accuse him of being evil just because of the way he was born? How dare they turn on him after getting to know him for a long time?

His eyes turned blood red as a pair of pincers appeared on his face. These became permanent, unlike the ones in his knees.

The kids were all frightened as he lifted the kid who had pushed him down by the neck with his pincers and squeezed. Blood flew from the kids' neck, everyone else too scared to help him.

Then the horrible event happened. Pierson clamped down so hard that the kid's neck was cut in half.

The kids all screamed and ran back inside the school as the kid's head rolled across the ground. Pierson's eyes return to normal as he looked down at the kid and cried, "WHAT HAPPENED!!!?? WHY IS THIS KID DEAD!!!??? WHO DID THIS!!!???"

"And that's where his demonic side comes from," Judas said as Meat simply nodded and said, "He dealt with such a horrible past. He gets this way when others hurt him too much."

"It's understandable," Checkmate replied, "but it doesn't have to be this way. He has control over it, but he doesn't realize it."

Mantarou lay on the mat, still barely able to breathe as he thought, 'Could Pierson have also suffered a horrible childhood trauma like Forestman?'

Unlike before when Pierson allowed Mantarou to stand again, the bug leapt onto his back and clamped down on his neck. He hissed as if he couldn't even speak anymore. He had finally lost all sense of reality.

"NO, MANTAROU!!!" Meat cried as Mantarou's neck was squeezed.

Mantarou couldn't help it. He was going to die. But this couldn't happen, could it? His friends had sacrificed themselves for him. He had done all this to save Rinko. Kevin did all he could to make Judas vulnerable.

Mantarou saw it now. Maybe Kevin knew he was going to die when he found out Judas' weakness. Maybe Kevin just wanted to destroy the dragon's armor before he went down for good so Mantarou would have a fighting chance.

The kid gritted his teeth, fuming at the head with rage. He couldn't allow all of this to be in vein. His friends may have died, but it was for his sake. Terry the Kid had exposed Raiwaburu's abilities. Seiuchin had shown that it was possible to harm an opponent like Steven despite the electricity produced by his body. And Gazelleman had exposed Pierson's true form. Mantarou was not going to let all of this go to waste.

The Kin mark appeared once again as his neck started to bulk out. Pierson's eyes widened as the points on his pincers shattered into tiny pieces.

"THAT'S ENOUGH FROM YOU!!!" Mantarou spat as he threw his elbow into Pierson's face. With the clamps badly damaged as they were, he could do nothing about this.

Mantarou then hurled him high into the air and ran over to the ropes propelling himself off of them.

"THIS MOVE MAY HAVE BEEN REVERSED, BUT IT'S NOT COMPLETELY USELESS!!!" he shouted as he flew forward, a flame surrounding his body and his head sticking out.

Pierson's eyes went even wider when Mantarou's head rammed into his back, Mantarou locking his arms and legs in place with only his hands and shouted, "MUSCLE MILLENIUM!!!" sending the bug demon hard into the ropes.

Now the pincers had almost completely shattered, the only ones remaining being the ones in his knees. All that remained of his mouth pincers were the small portion that he used to communicate with and that was it.

He fell to the ground as Mantarou breathed heavily. Pierson's eyes returned to normal as he let down tears and said, "You defeated me, Kinniku Mantarou."

Mantarou grinned and nodded, but became worried when Pierson said, "You know you can't leave until I'm dead, right?"

"No," Mantarou remarked, "I refuse to let you die!"

This was one of Mantarou's fatal flaws. It made him a compassionate person but also made him a softie. Unlike the other choujins, he was afraid of killing his opponents. He never wanted to end anyone's life. Injuring them so they couldn't perform evil acts was good in his eyes, but not killing. It was just against his nature to murder someone, evil or not.

"You must," Pierson replied, "I am a monster who deserves to be destroyed."

"No," Mantarou replied, leaning down to held him back to his feet, "You may have been born looking different, but a monster would not admit to being one."

Pierson let down tears and said, "Goodbye, Mantarou," leaning backwards, propelling his legs up with the ropes and allowing himself to fall head-first into the spike pit.

A single spike pierced through his head and that was it. His life had ended.

Mantarou let down tears thinking, 'I have to do this to every one of them. How can I bring myself to do such a thing?'

He was teleported back as Judas simply clapped and Meat and hugged Mantarou shouting, "That was a great job, Mantarou-san!"

"Well done," Judas said, "Are you ready for your next match?"

Mantarou fell on one knee as Checkmate stated, "Mantarou is tired. I shall fight in his place!"

"No," Judas replied, "Those who fight once are not allowed to fight in Mantarou's place again."

That was so unfair. Meat just let down tears. How could he be so cruel?

"WAIT!" shouted a voice as Judas turned his gaze to a separate platform that moved towards this platform as the figured walked forward.

"I will take Mantarou's place," said a man.

Mantarou looked at the man smiling and letting down a tear. Meat simply blinked. He and Checkmate had no idea who this was.

Mantarou let down tears of joy shouting, "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!! FORESTMAN, IT'S YOU!!!"

That's right, Forestman was back and looking healthy again.

"How could you get your health back so quickly after such a defeat?" Judas asked as Forestman explained, "I gathered energy from the roots and soil."

Judas nodded in understanding then asked, "Why are you helping Kinniku Mantarou?"

Forestman grimaced and replied, "He showed me that the path of evil only brings pain and misery! I refuse to play a part in this any longer!"

"Very well," Judas replied with a grin, "You may face an opponent of your choice."

Meat just glared at this man. If Forestman was originally a Demon Choujin, how could he be trusted? But Mantarou had no problem with him and Checkmate gave an approving nod, so Meat put his faith in the mutated flower.

"Careful what you pick," Meat stated, "He switched the doors."

"I know," Forestman replied as he ran through the door with an eyeball over it.


	10. Chapter 10

Rescue Rinko from the Demon Choujin

As soon as Forestman entered the room, he found himself on a cloud shaped like a wrestling ring. This was perfect. He knew that Steven would be in the room with the eyeball as there was no way he'd be in the room with the lightning rod.

Some of you are probably wondering why Forestman chose Steven while to others, this reason would be obvious. This reason I will reveal later.

Steven floated up on a cloud into the ring and blinked saying, "Forestman, why are you here?"

"I'm here to fight you," the mutated sunflower replied, getting into a fighting stance as Steven narrowed his eyes saying, "I knew you would one day betray us. You never had pure evil in your blood."

Forestman was a little bit offended by that statement. He felt that up until now, he'd been a great villain. But then again, he had spent a longer period of time with a good heart than the others had. He was, after all, at least 4 years older than the rest. Some would call him a veteran because of that, but due to the fact that he never fought until he was 18, he only had a couple of years' worth of experience while the other Demon Choujin had used their powers in combat since they were only 12.

Steven signaled the start of the match when he leapt quickly at Forestman placing his palm against the plant man's head grinning and releasing a large amount of bolts down Forestman's spine. But he gasped when he noticed only small burn marks, Forestman showing no real reaction to the attack.

"But… how is that possible?" Steven asked, his smile fading while Forestman changed his fingers into vines whipping Steven in the face, putting 3 slices in his cheek.

Steven held onto the side of his face, amazed that Forestman had already drawn first blood. That didn't surprise him. Forestman's whips were very much like knives. They could cut through wood, so human flesh was easy for the vines to penetrate. But what still confused Steven was how Forestman showed little to know pain from the electricity.

Before Steven could contemplate this further, Forestman ran over to him, wrapping his arms around the boy's neck and lifting him up above his head by the head. This was known as a Brain Buster and Steven had no way to avoid it. Sure, his head was only slammed against a cloud. Slam moves weren't that effective in the clouds, and as slamming wasn't Steven's way of fighting, it was a good mat for him to fight one. However, that didn't mean slam moves didn't hurt.

"You seem confused," Forestman stated while Steven slowly got back to his feet, panting heavily and waved his flowing white hair out from in front of his eyes saying, "Yes, please explain why my electricity has no effect on you."

"It is because I am part plant," Forestman replied, and as if the two were perfectly in sync with each other, Meat was explaining this to Mantarou and Checkmate at the exact same time adding, "Due to this, any pain inflicted by electricity is weakened significantly. That's why Forestman chose Steven as his opponent. He has an elemental advantage over him."

"Amazing!" Mantarou exclaimed with sparkles in his eyes as Checkmate grinned and said, "This new friend of yours is smart. I guess that kind of knowledge comes from working with the Demon Choujin."

Forestman proceeded to whip his vines into Steven's back, the boy crying out in pain as gashes appeared on his back and his spandex had been ripped.

"You can harm me all your want…" Steven huffed, "you can even make me bleed… BUT NEVER MESS WITH MY BATTLE OUTFIT!!!"

"It looks ridiculous on you, anyway," Forestman remarked as Steven fumed shouting, "SHUT UP!!!"

Suddenly, lightning came down into Steven's hands as much to both him and Forestman's surprise, a pair of gloves formed. Steven's eyes sparkled as he beamed, feeling very proud of himself right now.

"I'VE SUMMONED THE LIGHTNING GLOVES!!!" Steven shouted, "This is an ability passed down throughout my family for generations! It gives us a big power boost and ensures easier victories!"

Forestman had been taken aback, feeling rather impressed by this. However, there was one flaw with this.

"If those gloves have the power of lightning like the name implies," he stated, "then they are useless against me. They may give you more power against a normal opponent, but against me, those gloves take away any possible damage you could have inflicted to me with yours hands."

Steven grinned and cracked his knuckles, seeming to ignore that statement. At least that's how Forestman saw it. But what he didn't realize was that Steven knew something about these gloves, something that he knew would give him the upper hand.

Forestman charged at the boy with determination readying his vines, but as he sent them down upon Steven, the boy simply grabbed them as electricity came out of his gloves and into the vines.

"You fool!" Forestman spat, "Why do you even bother!? Lightning is useless!"

But his tune changed, eyes widened as he noticed the vines starting to turn black. He knew what this was. This was what happened to plants when they burned.

He quickly changed his vines back into fingers as he blew into them asking, "How is that possible?"

"The lightning in the Lightning Gloves is fused with the power of fire," Steven explained with a maniacal grin, "Your plant DNA has now become your biggest weakness."

Forestman was spellbound upon hearing this. He was unable to react in time to prevent Steven from reaching his arms around him and setting him up for a suplex, adding electricity to make the move more powerful.

Forestman cringed as his neck hit the mat hard, the mutated sunflower finally taken advantage of. Could he possibly manage to get out of this? It all seemed hopeless for him now.

"FORESTMAN!!!" Mantarou cried as Meat looked at the kid with concern. He knew that Mantarou was afraid, afraid that Forestman would die like the others had. At this point, he couldn't blame the kid. Mantarou had all the reason in the world to worry. It was like Meat had said earlier. Those who died all lost their lives during their moments of triumph. How was Forestman an exception?

Forestman was once again defenseless as Steven locked his arms and legs in place, sending electricity down his spine, an evil grin in his eyes. While before, this meant nothing, this was now the worst pain the mutated plant had ever felt. And since his vines were burned, he couldn't use them to get himself out of this.

"FORESTMAN, HANG IN THERE!!!" Mantarou cried out as Judas laughed, "It's useless! I told you that he can't hear you! He is in another area!"

It wasn't clear why, but for some strange reason, Mantarou's voice was able to reach one fighting in Steven's world. This was no exception as Forestman heard the kid's voice calling out to him, cheering him on.

Forestman was just about to lose consciousness when he remembered that he was fighting for his new friend. Mantarou had rekindled his faith in mankind and was the only person other than Jenny who had no problem being his friend.

While having friend may have been uncommon, even Forestman knew that friends stuck together through thick and thin. There was no way he would let down his new friend down.

Forestman's body transformed into that of a rose as the thorns pierced through Steven's hands. Steven's eyes widened as tears went down his face. He bit his lip, trying to ignore it, but only lasted 5 seconds before letting go and screaming in pain, clutching onto his now bleeding hands, his gloves slightly ripped open.

"I have you now," Forestman said with a smile, "I know that the only way you can ever harm your opponent is with electricity, and the only way you can use it is if you hold onto your opponent. But you cannot harm me when touching me will only cause you pain!"

Steven's eyes went wide with fear. He knew he had been cornered. Forestman had found another flaw in his strategy, and this flaw was so fatal that there was absolutely no way that Steven could think of to get around it.

Nevertheless, he refused to surrender. Demon choujins fought until death, and this was not going to change things for him. He would simply allow Forestman to kill him.

"GREAT JOB, FORESTMAN!!!" Mantarou cheered.

Meat let down a tear of joy while Checkmate grinned at Judas who simply grimaced, rather ashamed of Steven for giving up so easily.

Forestman lifted up the boy, flipped his body upside down and set him up for a pile driver, forcing Steven's head between his knees. He then leapt high into the air shouting, "THORN PILE DRIVER!!!" slamming him hard into the cloud mat.

The collision had not done much, but the thorns had. Blood poured from Steven's body as his spandex was almost completely torn to shred, the only exceptions being his wrists and ankles. Now, his entire lower body hadn't been exposed. He wore underwear, of course.

The boy just lay there covered in holes while Forestman returned to his sunflower form, picking the boy up and hurling him over the edge of the ring. He knew that he had no choice but to end Steven's life.

Judas gritted his teeth thinking, 'Damn you, Forestman,' while Mantarou and Meat went wild with cheers.

"It would seem as if your Demon Choujin aren't as good as you made them out to be," Checkmate taunted while the dragon fumed at the head, Forestman returning to the room.

"Very well," Judas said, clapping slowly, "You did a very good job, Forestman. I can see why you once worked under my wing."

Pointing towards the door with a lightning rod over it, he grimaced and snapped, "THAT DOESN'T STOP KINNIKU MANTAROU FROM HAVING TO FACE RAIWABURU!!!"

Mantarou's eyes went wide upon hearing this. He was so caught up in the moment that he and even Meat had forgotten that the kid had to face the last of the Demon choujins.

But Mantarou felt ready as he rose to his feet, a grin across his face as he said, "No problem," but then his look of confidence changed to one to weakness as he felt a jolt of pain down his spine and knelt on one knee, his eyes wide open.

"It would seem Mantarou is still too tired to face the final demon," Checkmate stated as Judas grinned and said, "Well, if Mantarou cannot even face his opponent, that means Raiwaburu wins by default and Rinko remains my prisoner."

Mantarou couldn't believe this. So much anger was filling his soul now. Judas was truly merciless. The kid had no way to prepare himself for this.

All seemed lost until Meat put on a serious front and snapped, "NOT SO FAST!!!"

Judas looked at Meat with curiosity as the child gritted his teeth and shouted, "I'LL TAKE MANTAROU'S PLACE!!! I'LL FACE RAIWABURU!!!"

Judas had to admit, this was intriguing. Mantarou's trainer had offered to go up against a demon. He didn't know much about Meat, but as Meat was a mere child, he saw the kid as more of a punching bag than a threat.

"Very interesting," the dragon stated, stroking his chin, "Fine, you may face Raiwaburu."

"ARE YOU INSANE!?" Mantarou snapped, then he mustered up the strength to grab Meat's arm saying, "Please, Meat-kun, I don't want to lose you too."

Meat looked at the kid with concern, but that look changed to a smile as he placed a hand on the kid's saying, "Don't worry about me. I know what I'm doing," and ran for the door.


	11. Chapter 11

Rescue Rinko from the Demon Choujin

Note: Now I know what a lot of you Ultimate Muscle fans are probably wondering to yourself: I must be insane letting Meat battle a hybrid of a bison, a hawk and a lion. Well, just read and see for yourself how I take a match with a little kid against a big scary monster and make it interesting.

Meat was now in the desert ring, surrounded by quicksand. He knew the dangers he was facing. If Raiwaburu won this match, Mantarou would no longer have a trainer.

However, this was a risk that Meat was willing to take. Though he didn't look it, he too was a Choujin trusted by the royal Kinniku family and it was as much his duty to protect peace as it was anyone else's.

As he entered the ring, he noticed a cloaked figure glide down and land on what looked like large paws. As the man removed his cloak, he revealed himself to be Raiwaburu and stood tall and proud.

"What was the point of the cloak?" Meat asked as Raiwaburu broke his concentration and remarked, "What ever do you mean?"

"Well, it seems kind of pointless to hide yourself when the readers all know what you look like," Meat replied.

The hybrid was about to ballistic, but then he remembered that Meat was only a kid. In fact, he was extremely short too, at least a third of the hybrid's size.

Raiwaburu blinked and broke out into hysterics, rolling across the mat with tears running down his face. Meat stared at him, blinking, while the hybrid simply coughed and wheezed before finally calming down, wiping a tear from his eye.

"Seriously," the hybrid said, "is this a joke?"

Meat frowned and replied, "I can assure you, this is no joke."

"One second," Raiwaburu replied as he fell on his back once more, rolling around laughing insanely, then after about 20 seconds, he got up and wiped his forehead.

"Who knew watching comedy could be so exhausting?" he asked himself, then with a more serious look grinned at Meat saying, "Listen, kid, you'd best just give up now. I don't want to be responsible for the death of a child."

Even Meat had to admit, he was a bit scared. How couldn't he be? This hybrid of beasts killed one of the Justice Choujin, Terry the Kid. Meat knew that his life was at stake.

Nevertheless, he just stood his ground, a serious look saying, "Just start the match already."

Raiwaburu let out a deep roar as he charged at the child, horns out and ready. Raiwaburu was very fast and Meat had no time to dodge, so he braced himself for impact. After about 5 seconds, the kid realized that nothing had hit him.

He opened his eyes and realized that the hybrid wasn't even in front of him anymore. In fact, Raiwaburu was behind the kid rubbing his head, which apparently had been hit by something.

'What just happened?' Meat thought, but then he understood. Raiwaburu's legs almost matched Meat's height, so perhaps when the hybrid charged towards the kid, he ran right over Meat's head, since Meat was slightly crouched at the time. Not realizing that he had missed, Raiwaburu must have carelessly charged head-first into the pole. It all made sense now.

"That was a slight miscalculation on my part," the hybrid groaned, rubbing his skull, "but I assure you, I will not make that mistake again!"

Meat sighed with relief when he saw Raiwaburu charging at him again. Wow, Raiwaburu was quite careless. Luckily, unlike Terry the Kid, Meat was not the kind of opponent for Raiwaburu to be facing as he wasn't careless like Terry was, so he crouched once again, ready for this move.

But much to his surprise, Raiwaburu lifted up his knee along the way and rammed it into Meat's skull, the kid stumbling back and rubbing his aching head.

"I'm amazed someone who trained Kinniku Mantarou would fall for such an obvious bluff," Raiwaburu said, "You may now how to use some fancy moves, but it's clear that you are not fit for combat."

This was not true. Unbeknownst to many new generations, Meat had fought evil before. It was in the fight for the Kinniku Throne when Kinnikuman was defeated by a certain Mixer Taitei. Meat was left to take Kinnikuman's place and it was his first experience in battle. Afterwards, he fought the Manriki and to make a long story short, Meat was not at all unfamiliar with first-hand combat.

But Meat had no time to act on this as Raiwaburu lifted up his leg again, this time ramming his foot into Meat's face, closing his lion's claws in on the kid. Meat cried out in pain for his face now had holes in it.

With that, Raiwaburu performed a hand stand, still holding Meat's head with his foot and said, "This will be over soon," sending his legs down into the mat ramming Meat's body into it and finally letting go of the kid's head.

"MEAT-KUN!!!" Mantarou cried as Forestman gritted his teeth saying, "I should be fighting Raiwaburu, not Meat."

"Don't blame yourself," Checkmate replied, "Don't forget the rules: we are not allowed to fight again for we have already fought in Mantarou's place."

Mantarou let down tears saying, "If I had the energy to fight Raiwaburu, I would have done it myself and not have gotten Meat involved with this. I can't lose him too!"

But the hybrid's boastful posing didn't last long as Meat slowly climbed back to his feet, glaring at the beast while his back was turned to him. Judas was shocked to see the kid rising up after such a beating. Meat's body was so small. How could that kid survive such an early onslaught?

'You made the careless mistake of ignoring me,' Meat thought as he charged towards Raiwaburu grabbing onto his ankle and pulling on it, causing Raiwaburu to topple face-first into the mat.

'No, this is impossible,' the beast thought as Meat started to bend his leg, actually causing the hybrid pain.

"I must admit," Raiwaburu said with a grin, "that is very impressive that such a weak-looking body could handle such a beating.''

"Thanks," Meat said through gritted teeth, still bending Raiwaburu's lion leg while the hybrid said, "I should thank you. Now I have no reason to go easy on you."

The second he heard this, Meat's eyes widened while Raiwaburu simply lifted every part of his body except his one leg up. Sure, it actually caused his leg a bit more pain, but the beast ignored this and reached his arms around prying Meat off of him and hurling the kid into the post.

"That wasn't half bad, Meat-kun," Raiwaburu said with a grin as he spread out his arms and took to the skies with his bird DNA, "but now you will know what true pain is!"

The hybrid flew high into the sky and out of distance as Meat blinked. Then he grimaced. He knew what Raiwaburu was up to.

'Where is he going to appear from?' the kid thought, as Raiwaburu spiraled downward and halted himself right behind Meat, aiming his fists towards the kid's back.

'Without any wings to flap,' the hybrid thought, 'there's no way he can hear me coming.'

But even Meat hadn't considered this as he took a hard punch to the back. He landed flat on his face as Raiwaburu took to the skies once again.

'I doubt he'd come in from behind again,' Meat thought rubbing his head and darting his eyes back and forth, 'but that's the only way he could surprise me… unless…'

He then realized it, but it seemed too late as Raiwaburu was once again spiraling downwards, this time with his horned pointed towards Meat's skull. I say it seemed too late because the truth was that Meat knew Raiwaburu was going to try this.

The kid grinned and leapt to the side as Raiwaburu's horns rammed hard into the mat, his head now jammed in place.

"Dammit!" he cursed, pushing hard against the mat, "Why didn't that kill you, you little brat!?"

"You may have tricked me the first time," Meat stated, "but as there were no other tricks that could have worked, this one just seemed obvious."

Mantarou sniffed tears of joy as he said, "I had no idea Meat could fight so well."

"Even I must admit I'm impressed," Checkmate stated, "Sure, it's easy for him to take advantage of you, and anyone can plainly see why, but against a more skilled opponent… this is truly something."

"WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!!!??" Mantarou snapped while Judas simply grimaced. This should have been over in less than a minute.

Raiwaburu rubbed his forehead, releasing steam from his nostrils and shouted, "NO MORE MISTER NICE GUY!!!"

Meat was shocked when the hybrid leapt at Meat, planting his paws into the kid's skull. This was known as the Texas Condor kick, one of Terryman's favorite moves. While Meat's head started to spin in response to this, Raiwaburu bend down so low, one would have expected a hunch to grow from this position. Upon doing so, he scooped Meat's armpits up with his horns and hurled the kid into the air, rising up towards him and slapping his paws against Meat's sides, using them to shuffle Meat's body so his head was facing the mat.

"Time to suffer the might of my strongest move," he stated, then sending Meat's head hard into the mat shouted, "FLYING BOVINE PAW CRUSHER!!!!"

Yes, even I must admit, that name was really lame, but nevertheless, it was more than enough to knock the poor kid out cold. Meat's body just lay there, lifeless while everyone but Judas watched in horror at the sight of it.

"I must admit," Judas stated with a grin, "Meat was a far better adversary than I first believed him to be, but even he couldn't stop the might of Raiwaburu."

Mantarou shouted, "Alright, he's won! Just send Meat back here and we'll accept the fact that he lost! Just please don't have him die!"

"I can't do that," Judas remarked, "Even if I wanted to, I just simply can't. The worlds themselves are set to work this way. One cannot leave unless the other is dead."

Mantarou pondered this and asked, "But how come I was allowed to leave Forestman's world without Forestman dying? Explain that!"

"I can explain that," Forestman replied as a flashback started up.

After Forestman had thanked Mantarou, he secretly stabbed him in the back of the neck using his vines by grabbing onto a small chip of wood. Mantarou's return happened so quickly, that he couldn't see that Forestman was dead.

Now you're probably wonder how he lived. See, Forestman was one with the forest itself. The forest of which he had lived when serving under Judas would not allow him to die, so shortly after his death, the energy released from the plant life went into Forestman's corpse and returned him to the world of the living.

"That's truly amazing," Checkmate said in response as Mantarou continued to weep. Now he knew there was no way to escape this. Meat had no choice but to accept death.

"MEAT-KUN!!!!" the kid screamed through tears as Raiwaburu basked in his victory like he had the last time he'd knocked Meat out. He so sure of himself that his back was turned to the boy as the child's eyes started to open once more.

'What am I doing lying around like this?' Meat thought, 'I can't allow him to win. I need Mantarou to rest up for his match with Judas. If he faces Raiwaburu, he might not have the strength to defeat Judas even if he does win.'

That said, Meat slowly rose to his feet, Raiwaburu none the wiser while Mantarou, Checkmate, Forestman and Judas all stared with eyes wide open. How could Meat stand up after taking in Raiwaburu's most devastating move?

The hybrid was about to finish his victim off for good when he felt a small pair of hands wrap around his waste. His eyes were wide open as he thought, 'No… it's not possible… I refuse to believe that it is…'

But it was true. Those were Meat's hands clutching onto his sides as the kid let down tears saying, "If I allowed you to win, I'll die knowing that I didn't do the best I could."

The hybrid was too shocked to even respond to this as Meat lifted him up over his head and flipped his body back, leaping into the air and slammed Raiwaburu's neck hard against the mat.

"NO WAY!!!" Mantarou shouted, a new sense of joy filling his heart.

Judas just stared, eyes twitching and all he could think about was, 'That kid used a back drop… on an opponent much heavier than he is…'

Raiwaburu lay there on the mat as Meat sighed with relief, but now he had himself a bit of a dilemma. How was he supposed to get Raiwaburu into the quicksand? His body was so weak as it was that he didn't see how he could possibly muster up the strength to pull this off.

But he was not going to give up this chance as he applied all of his might into pushing the hybrid's unconscious body out of the ring. It took a good minute and a half, but in the end, he managed to do it as Raiwaburu's body sunk into the ground and Meat was sent back to the others.

"MEAT-KUN!!!" Mantarou cried with joy in his eyes as he finally regained full strength and ran towards Meat with his arms open.

"Stop," Meat said as Mantarou tripped and fell flat on his face asking, "Come on, is hugging me really that embarrassing?"

"No," Meat replied, shaking his head, "It's just that I don't think I can handle a hug right now."

Mantarou's eyes were wide open, his body trembling while the kid lost all consciousness, passing out in front of him. Judas grinned saying, "Meat did so much better than I thought he would, but there was no way his body could handle so much punishment. It's about time he had a nice rest, don't you think?"

Mantarou stood up tall and glared at Judas with a burning passion in his eyes. He was sick and tired of all of this. All he cared about now was that Judas was finally put in his place.


	12. Chapter 12

Rescue Rinko from the Demon Choujin

Judas grinned wickedly as Mantarou glared at him while a portion of the ceiling started to drip downward like ooze. Mantarou's eyes went wide when he saw a cage emerge from the ooze. It hung there and carried Rinko within it.

Rinko, who had been unconscious the whole time, finally opened her eyes as she noticed the dark and dank scenery shouting, "WHERE THE HELL AM I!?"

"Good to see you're finally awake," Judas said, "Would you believe that you've been out for almost a whole day? I must say, I apologize for the inconvenience."

The girl finally remembered what was going on. She'd been kidnapped by a cloaked figure with a tentacle and everything that happened after that was a blur for she had been out cold the whole time.

She then saw a sight that she found rather odd. Sure, Mantarou being there to save her was expected, but Meat was unconscious and there was a mutated plant man standing there as well.

"RINKO-CHAN!!!" Mantarou shouted with all his anger and frustration, "DON'T YOU WORRY YOUR PRETTY LITTLE HEAD!!! I WILL MAKE SURE YOU COME OUT OF THIS ALIVE!!!!"

Rinko blushed slightly, but turned away upon doing so. After a few seconds, she turned back to the kid and smiled. Mantarou may have been weird, but when he was heroic, she found him to be pretty cute.

Mantarou entered the ring with confidence while Judas simply grinned. Sure, he wished Mantarou had failed earlier, but at the same time he just knew that Mantarou would make it to him. The dragon had been looking forward to this match all day.

But once again, Mantarou didn't have his trainer to help him with his match. However, he had done pretty darn well in the other matches. Nevertheless, Judas was powerful.

"Mantarou's done well so far," Checkmate stated, "but who knows how much longer he can last without guidance?"

"I'd give him advice myself," Forestman replied, "but unfortunately, I've never seen Judas fight without his armor before. I have nothing that can help Mantarou."

Judas signaled the start of the match as he charged towards Mantarou, the kid raising his knee and slamming it hard into the incoming dragon's gut. Judas stood there for a few seconds, eyes twitching and muscle fidgeting. Mantarou seized the opportunity and slid under Judas, locking the dragon's legs in place with his own legs and pulling on Judas' chin with his arms. By pulling on both parts, he was able to bend the dragon's back while holding him in place. This was Mantarou's strongest submission technique, the Ultimate Hold.

"You'll pay for all you've done," Mantarou stated, "all the suffering you put me through. You made a mistake when you kidnapped my future wife!"

Rinko blushed and slapped her hands over her face. Why did he have to say that? Rinko secretly loved Mantarou but could never admit to it.

"I'm impressed," Judas said with a grin, "You remembered how fast I am without the armor, so you decided to prevent me from moving with a submission hold. But while that is smart…"

Mantarou was frightened when Judas shifted his legs prying them out of Mantarou's hold then flipped his body over, mounting himself on Mantarou's head, his legs wrapped around the kid's neck in a figure 4 leg lock.

"Submission holds mean nothing to me," he stated, twisting his legs around and slamming Mantarou's face hard into the mat.

Rinko was now scared as Judas didn't stop there. All Checkmate and Forestman could do was watch the horror ensue while Judas hurled Mantarou into the post. Then, with the amazing speed he had gained from the loss of his armor, he charged towards the ropes and leapt off of them towards Mantarou, kicking him hard in the skull.

Mantarou let down tears thinking, 'What was I thinking? I can't defeat this guy? He's too fast and strong.'

"MANTAROU, DON'T GIVE UP!!!" Checkmate shouted as Forestman added, "IT'S TOO EARLY TO ADMIT DEFEAT!!!"

"I'll never forgive you if you lose, Mantarou!" Rinko snapped, and that was more than enough to bring Mantarou's strength back.

During that whole talk, Judas had been preparing to finish Mantarou early in the match, which many would probably regard as one of the stupidest things one could ever do. But hey, he thought Mantarou was weak enough. It's not all that stupid.

For some odd reason, Judas' cheeks were puffed up and steam was coming from the dragon's nostrils. Mantarou realized right away what this meant, as did everyone else watching. Judas was about to breathe fire, and from how long this was taking, he was preparing to fire a lot of it.

But there was a big flaw with this move, which was also the main reason Judas hardly ever used it. While preparing the move, moving his body would causing him to burn his insides, so he was wide open, but could Mantarou get to him before he released the fire from his body?

Judas looked like he was finally going to release the fire, and due to the fact that his eyes were also closed for this, he had no idea that the kid was up. Mantarou realized that there were risks, though. If he charged directly at Judas and the dragon released the fire, there was no way to avoid it, but if Judas' fire was too thick, then dodging to the side would have been a waste of time.

But Mantarou had no guidance for this, so he simply charged towards the scaly demon. Judas grinned and muttered through puffed cheeks, "Time to die…" but just as he tried to open his mouth, his eyes went wide.

Mantarou had made it just in time to pry Judas' mouth closed while he grinned. "Before you attempt a move like that," Mantarou said, "you have to be absolutely certain that your opponent can't move."

Judas was scared out of his mind. If he kept the fire in his body for too long, it would destroy him. He had to release it at all cost, but he knew that if he attempted to get Mantarou to release him, the explosion would happen sooner.

"Okay, this I am familiar with," Forestman stated, "MANTAROU, DON'T HOLD ON ANY LONGER!!! IF YOU DO, THE FIRE WILL SPREAD AND HE'LL BLOW UP ALONG WITH YOU!!!"

Checkmate and Rinko were both frightened by this news, but Mantarou, being the crybaby he was most of the time, was especially frightened. But now was the perfect opportunity to get Judas. He had to take advantage of this.

"I hope I have enough time for this to work," Mantarou said as he lifted Judas above his head, mounting the dragon for a DDT. He then slammed Judas' head hard into the mat as Judas' mouth open wide, releasing a large blast of fire into the darkness. While the darkness itself doubles as more of a wall than a sky, the fire still didn't seem to touch it.

But Mantarou had certainly made the right decision. The blast that Judas had released was more than wide enough to have hit Mantarou no matter where in the ring the kid was standing. Mantarou's body would have been burned to a crisp had this worked.

Judas lay there, gasping for air. He coughed up some smoke groaning, "I forgot how much energy that move took out of me."

Mantarou saw that Judas was struggling to even so much as stand up. This was beyond perfect for him.

"DO IT, MANTAROU!!!" Rinko shouted as the kid lifted Judas above his head, placing his legs in a splits formation and leapt into the air shouting, "KINNIKU BUSTER!!!!" slamming hard into the mat, Judas coughing up blood.

Over the past, any opponent who was hit by this move would have lost immediately as a result. See, the Kinniku Buster was so powerful that it could break an opponent's neck, thighs and calf muscles. (I might be a bit off here) Unfortunately, Mantarou made a bit of mistake. He had used this move too early, so Judas was still able to stand after all of that.

But like before, he was struggling to stay on his toes as he panted heavily. The dragon fell, supporting himself up with one knee and coughing up blood.

"Just do yourself and favor and give up," Mantarou said as Forestman nodded and stated, "It's over, Judas. Mantarou has won."

"NO!!!" Judas snapped, "KINNIKU MANTAROU HAS NOT WON!!!"

Mantarou started to panic when he noticed Judas standing up as if nothing had happened earlier. Then something even more odd happened. His hair started to flow as an aura surrounded his body and a black skull appeared on his forehead. Mantarou realized what this meant. Just like him, Judas had a mark that appeared on his forehead to increase his strength when he needed it most.

Judas' muscle expanded in size while Checkmate noticed something appear on his back. It resembled a traditional painting of a dragon's face.

"What is that?" he asked as Forestman blinked and said, "I have no idea."

"I can explain that," came a soft voice.

Everyone darted their attention out of the ring and noticed a truly spectacular sight. Meat's eyes were now open and the kid slowly rose to his feet.

"Mantarou-san," Meat said, "that is the hidden power of the Demon Choujin. It is said that only a select few are able to unleash its power. It's a sign that Judas has become a true master."

But the second he finished this statement, his pupils vanished and he fell to the floor once again. Mantarou now had a reason to be scared again. If what Meat said was true, Judas was a much bigger threat than before.

"I'm quite surprised that he knew that," Judas said, "That Meat sure is a smart cookie. Anyway, enough small talk. I think it's about time I ended this."

Mantarou refused to let this intimidate him as he reached his arms around Judas' waste. Judas laughed and did the same with Mantarou, lifting the kid up over his shoulders and ran forward, driving the boy into the mat. This was known as the California Crush.

While the kid lay there, unable to respond, Judas hurled him into the air and leapt up after him, flipping the boy's body over and clutching onto his legs. He then bit hard into Mantarou's legs while he spun the boy's body downward into the mat, Mantarou's blood flying everywhere.

This was the move that had ended Kevin's life, and now Mantarou had been hit with it. Checkmate just stared with wide eyes as 4 droplets landed on his chest. Forestman let down a tear while 8 droplets landed on him.

But Rinko was the most torn right now. She was heavy on the tears trying her hardest not to cry. But soon, the pressure got to her as she shouted at the top of her lungs, "MANTAROU!!!!!!!!" the boy lying on the mat, unconscious.


	13. Chapter 13

Rescue Rinko from the Demon Choujin

Mantarou just lay on the mat while Judas laughed maniacally at the top of his lungs. Had he actually defeated Kinniku Mantarou? All seemed lost now and there was nothing that could be done about it.

Now, Judas never knew his parents. See, they had been killed shortly after he was born and as a result, he was adopted by two humans. They weren't just any old married couple, either. These 2 were the ones responsible for his parents' death.

"Look, that kid is nothing more than a spawn of those monsters," the husband said as the wife shook her head and stated, "We can't just leave a baby out to die in the cold."

Judas grew up thinking these humans were his parents. When he asked why he looked nothing like them while the other kids did, they simply told him that he was born with a mutation, something that couldn't be changed.

Now, one might think his life ended up like Forestman and Pierson's did, in which he spent his life ridiculed for his appearance. Luckily, the kids where he lived weren't quite as judgmental and accepted him as an equal. They were raised not to judge one by appearance alone.

Judas lived 10 happy years making a good number of friends and showing love and compassion towards his family… until one day.

He was having trouble getting to sleep and walked down the steps in his pajamas with a yawn. Upon reaching the bottom step, he overheard something he really shouldn't have.

"I still don't know about all of this," his father said to his wife while the two sat on the couch, "It all seems too good to last."

"Now, Jared," Judas' mother replied, "It's for the best that he doesn't know about his real parents."

'Real parents?' Judas thought, 'So I'm adopted?'

Judas' eyes were wide. Now, he had no problem with being adopted, but for his parents not to tell him… why wouldn't they? What they said next answered this very question.

"I guess you're right," the father replied, "Just imagine how he'd take it if he found out that we were the ones who blew up his house with dynamite and killed his parents."

The couple did go on, but Judas didn't care about what else they were saying. The second he heard that they had caused the death of his real parents when he didn't even know they existed, the young dragon was furious.

At that very moment, the couple heard snarling and slowly moved their eyes behind them and saw Judas standing there with rage all over his face.

"Judas…" the mother said, "What are you doing up?"

"You lied to me…" Judas remarked backing away from them, "YOU KILLED MY PARENTS!!!"

"Son, listen…" the father said, but Judas cut him off shouting, "YOU'RE NOT MY FATHER!!!!"

The mother's eyes widened as Judas' cheeks inflated releasing a flame into the father's face. The dragon's adopted father held onto his face as the flesh burned off.

Then Judas angrily turned to his mother and snapped, "YOU'LL BE THE FIRST TO GO!!!!"

The mother was too shocked to move as Judas leapt atop her and bit hard into her head. He continued to ram his teeth into her as blood dripped out until the mother finally lost too much blood and fell to the floor.

Meanwhile, the father was still trying to ignore the burning on his face, but it was too late as Judas picked up a butcher knife and rammed it into the man's back. The child dragon breathed heavily and said, "You've been avenged, mom and dad."

Judas looked down at Mantarou's unconscious body and said, "Humans have brought me nothing but pain and misery. With their greatest hero gone, they will be defenseless against my wrath."

This came as a surprise to Forestman. He'd never heard anything about that. He understood the dragon's pain, though. He had been wronged by humans in his past. But then he faced a teenager who taught him the value of friendship.

Checkmate examined Mantarou and shouted, "Mantarou! Mantarou!"

Forestman nodded and joined him shouting, "Mantarou! Mantarou!"

Rinko started to worry not only about her own life, but about the kid as well. She may have hidden it a lot, but she really did care about Mantarou.

Judas laughed shouting, "Why even bother trying? Your cheering will not bring him back! He's gone forever!"

After a while, it seemed true. Silence filled the area as everyone stopped chanting the kid's name. Forestman looked closely at the kid and lowered his head with a sad expression.

"There's no doubt about it," the mutated plant said, "Kinniku Mantarou is dead."

There was silence all throughout the area. There was just no way this could be true. Rinko tried her hardest not to cry and bit her lip while tears ran down her face.

At this moment, Meat's eyes started to slowly open as he finally regained consciousness. His vision was blurry for a second, but it wasn't long before he could see clearly again and he wished he hadn't.

"MANTAROU!!!" he screamed as Checkmate placed a hand on the child's shoulder shaking his head and saying, "He's dead, Meat-kun."

Meat couldn't believe what he had just heard. He'd finally regained consciousness only to find that his student was dead.

"I have no choice," Forestman said, sniffing, "I'm going to have to revive him."

"Wait, if you could revive him, why didn't you revive everyone else?" Checkmate asked as Forestman shook his head and said, "I can only use this power once. You see, all of us Demon choujins have the power to resurrect one who has fallen, but sadly, it costs us our own lives to do it. I would have done this sooner, but I wasn't certain if Mantarou would survive his fight against Judas."

"What are you saying?" Meat asked as Forestman stated, "Unlike the others, while I still lose my life in the process, I can bring back more than one. I wanted to wait until the end of Mantarou's match to use that power otherwise it would have been in vain."

"Wait!" Rinko snapped, "What is this all about!?"

That's right. Rinko didn't know that Terry the Kid, Seiuchin, Gazelleman and Kevin had also shown up to help Mantarou save her.

Meat sighed and stated, "Rinko, there were 4 others who came with us and all 4 of them died in the process."

Rinko couldn't believe it. All of this had happened because she had been kidnapped. She couldn't help feeling responsible for all of this.

"I can bring them back," Forestman reminded them, "Don't worry about it."

Checkmate nodded in understanding as Meat let down tears saying, "Forestman, you don't have to do this."

"But I must," the mutated plant said, "I have spent these last couple of years as a villain. This I feel is the only way to truly redeem myself."

With that, Forestman transformed his fingers into vines and shoved them down his throat, pulling out a seed. This seed was his heart.

Forestman smiled and broke off a segment saying, "This piece is for Terry the Kid."

Breaking off another couple, he stated, "These pieces are for Gazelleman and Seiuchin."

All 3 shot up into the air as he split the bottom half of the seed in two saying, "These last two are for Kinniku Mantarou and Kevin Mask."

The segments then shot out of his hand. One sunk into the gooey ceiling as Kevin body came out, the flesh around his heart glowing.

Meanwhile, in the pyramid, Gazelleman's eyes opened wide when something touched his heart and caused it to start pumping again. Upon seeing that his heart was out to his flesh, he started to panic, but when his flesh started to repair itself and merge with the heart, he was more surprised than frightened.

Seiuchin's eyes opened when he saw a glow near his heart. He simply blinked and thought, 'How did I survive the 50-story drop?'

Terry was the most surprised as his body floated up out of the quicksand assisted by a strange light near his heart.

All 4 previous victims had returned to Judas' realm as the dragon stood there in shock. He didn't think that Forestman could actually possess such a power.

"We're alive," Gazelleman said, still in shock while Terry simply grinned and said, "I knew there was no way a buffalo was going to keep me down!"

Meat let down tears and embraced Terry shouting, "WE THOUGHT YOU WERE GONE FOR GOOD!!!"

While Terry tried his best to pry Meat off of him, Gazelleman and Seiuchin blinked, noticing that even Checkmate was letting down tears and advancing towards them with his arms out.

"OH, GOOD GOD, STAY AWAY FROM US!!!!" they snapped as Checkmate rubbed the back of his head and said, "I was only kidding."

"How are we still alive?" Kevin asked, "All of us died."

"WE REALLY DID DIE!!!??" Seiuchin spat, panic once again filling his body as Meat pointed at Forestman whose face was now wrinkled.

"It's good to see you guys alive and well…" he said with a smile, "It's good to know that my sacrifice wasn't in vain."

But Rinko was still upset, and it wasn't hard to see why. Though Mantarou's heart had a glow around it, he wasn't moving. He was still unconscious and his heart refused to beat.

"But why?" Meat asked as Judas laughed, "Well, it's nice that all of you are back, but unless Mantarou can still fight me, I'm afraid this victory still belongs to me and Rinko will remain my prisoner!"

"NO, MANTAROU!!!" Rinko cried as the others just stared, shocked expressions on their faces.

Mantarou found himself in a world full of darkness. Everywhere, it was dark. And he himself was running from who else but the Grim Reaper.

"Come back here, Kinniku Mantarou," the reaper said, holding his scythe, "It's not worth it to resist me!"

Mantarou let down tears when suddenly six orbs of light came in and sent the grim reaper packing. Mantarou was shocked when these orbs turned into the faces of his friends.

"Get up, you big crybaby," Terry said, "You still have a match to fight."

"It's not over yet," Seiuchin stated as Gazelleman added, "We didn't come all this way for failure."

Checkmate simply nodded as Kevin said, "There is no way my most worthy opponent is going to lose! I will not allow it!"

Forestman's head simply said, "Good luck, Kinniku Mantarou," and shattered while a hole appeared in the sky and Mantarou rose up towards it.

Meat's look of sadness changed to a smile when Mantarou's pupils reappeared. The kid's eyes went wide as he slowly got to his feet, breathing heavily.

"I don't think we're done yet," the kid said with a grin as Judas simply stared, wide-eyed while the Kin mark appeared on the kid's forehead.


	14. Chapter 14

Rescue Rinko from the Demon Choujin

Judas was frozen in place, eyes twitching and jaw dropped. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Why couldn't Mantarou have just stayed dead?

Mantarou noticed the others and smiled shouting, "OH MY GOD, YOU'RE ALIVE!!!"

"That's right," Terry replied, "now stop worrying about us. You have a match to finish."

Mantarou cried loud as the fire burning within him grew brighter and bigger. He then ran at Judas and landed a fierce kick to his gut. As Judas knelt down in pain, Mantarou leapt into the air and landed a drop kick to his head. This kick was enough to open up a wound on Judas' head as blood trickled down.

Judas cried in horror as the black skull atop his forehead was covered with blood. The blood dripping down seemed to block off the skull's effects, Judas' muscles returning to regular size and the demon tattoo on his back vanishing. Now the dragon was in trouble.

Mantarou placed his hands against Judas' shoulders and climbed up onto them with his legs now bound to them, leaning backwards and flipping Judas' head into the mat. As the dragon attempted to recover, the kid kicked the reptile hard in the back.

Judas breathed heavily and turned to Mantarou, tears in his eyes as he said, "I've learned my lesson, Mantarou-san. Please forgive me for all I've done."

Mantarou blinked and smiled saying, "I figured you would. Now let Rinko-chan go."

Judas got back to his feet and grinned wickedly shouting, "YOU THINK I'D COOPERATE WITH HUMANS!!!!??"

Mantarou's eyes went wide as Judas lifted Mantarou above his head, placing the boy in a splits formation saying, "Just like Kevin, you're going to fall victim to your own finishing move!"

Mantarou was frightened now as Judas leapt into the air. The kid wasn't prepared for the Kinniku Buster. How could he possibly get out of this?

"MANTAROU, TRY SPINNING YOUR BODY AND FREEING YOUR LEGS!!!" Meat shouted, everyone's eyes wide at the sound of this.

Was such a thing even possible? Well, Mantarou had no other options right now as he started to spin his body, creating a twister around the two choujins.

"I've heard of this," Terry stated, "This is the Neo Kinniku Buster. It is a reversal of the move, but there must be a surface above Mantarou's head."

"Really?" Gazelleman replied, "But hold on, there is no ceiling in this place."

Meat grinned as Kevin stated, "There is a ceiling. That black sky that surrounds us is a ceiling in disguise."

Rinko let down tears of joy as Mantarou's legs landed atop the gooey roof, Judas' body taking in damage. But as the ceiling was made of goo, it only had a portion of the strength of what a regular Kinniku Buster would have done.

As Judas descended, feeling helpless after taking in such a strong beating, Mantarou saw his opportunity and took it. He flipped his body over, going back-to-back with the dragon. With that, he held his arms back, holding Judas' arms in place. Then he locked Judas' legs with his own and pulled on the 4 parts, folding Judas' body.

With that, he rammed Judas' head and knees hard into the mat shouting, "MUSCLE SPARK!!!!"

Everyone in the area gasped. Mantarou had just performed his father's most powerful and difficult move, the Muscle Spark. This was not only a move used by Kinnikuman. Kinnikuman originally used a different version of it which simply involved him locking the opponent's neck with his leg and pulling on the opponent's arms. His brother, Sergeant Ataru Kinnikuman had used a different version.

Kinnikuman had earned himself quite the reputation when he did the impossible and fused both versions of the move to create a Muscle Spark that was twice as strong as the original. Mantarou had performed Ataru Kinnikuman's version of the move.

"He used the Muscle Spark," Meat said with a joyful tear in his eyes, "It may have been incomplete, but he actually did it."

Blood poured from the dragon as he just lay on the mat, eyes wide open and body unable to move. After coughing up one last bit of blood, he looked into Mantarou's eyes, tears forming and said, "Mantarou… why didn't you just end my life?"

"I don't believe in killing," Mantarou replied as Judas sniffed, "I guess maybe I was wrong about my view of the world."

The cage around Rinko vanished as the girl fell. Mantarou's eyes went wide as he dove down and attempted to catch her only to fall flat on his face, Kevin rushing in and catching her, the girl blushing.

Mantarou grumbled a bunch of curses under his breath as Kevin shrugged and set the girl down as she walked over to Mantarou and shook his hand saying, "Thank you for rescuing me, Mantarou-san."

Mantarou hung his head, ashamed of himself for once again not receiving a kiss from his beloved. Then he noticed something horrifying, a wrinkled mess that resembled a flower far past its prime lying on the ground unconscious.

"Forestman!" Mantarou shouted, "What happened!?"

"He gave his life to revive the others," Meat replied as Mantarou let down tears. He knew his friends' return didn't make sense, but he'd have rather it been a simple miracle than the result of a sacrifice. While his other friends were back, he had lost his new friend.

"He died for my sake…" Mantarou sniffed, "If I hadn't lost my life, he wouldn't have given up his soul."

"That's not true," Checkmate replied, "Before he made the ultimate sacrifice, he told us that he would have done it even if you had lived through your match with Judas. You are not to blame for this."

Rinko placed a hand on the kid's shoulder and coaxed, "It was his decision. He felt it was the only way to redeem himself."

Mantarou wiped the tears from his eyes and nodded in understanding. Judas then let down tears of his own.

"I'm so sorry," the dragon wept, "All of this is my fault. I don't deserve to live. Like my parents, I'm a monster. I deserve to suffer the same fate as them."

Mantarou looked over at the dragon with a serious look in his eyes and walked over slowly. He then knelt down next to the dragon and said, "A real monster would not admit to being one."

Judas let down more tears and smiled upon hearing that. These were the same words Mantarou had told Pierson. Perhaps Judas could turn his life around.

At that very moment, a door opened revealing Mantarou's back yard. Everyone smiled realizing that this was the way back.

Everyone ran to the exit except for Meat and Rinko who noticed that Mantarou hadn't taken advantage of this.

"Mantarou, come on!" Rinko exclaimed as Meat nodded saying, "The door might close if we wait too long!"

Mantarou nodded and held Judas up, the dragon asking, "What are you doing?"

"I'm not leaving you here," Mantarou said with a grin, and with that, he sprinted towards the door.

Meat and Rinko sighed with relief until they turned around and noticed that, as Meat had predicted, the door was closing, and at a rather alarming rate. Meat and Rinko tried their hardest but just couldn't seem to make it.

Mantarou couldn't bear to see them remain trapped here with him, so he rammed his shoulders into their backs sending them flying through the door thinking, 'Sorry, Rinko-chan.'

Rinko rubbed her back cursing, "Damn! Why did he have to his us so hard?"

"Is he going to make it?" Seiuchin asked, then Meat and Rinko's eyes went wide. The door was almost completely closed.

"We need to keep it open!" Kevin snapped, but unlike the entrance, this one wasn't so hard to keep open.

Try as they may, all 7 pulled hard on the door trying to keep it from vanishing. Mantarou realized there was only one way he'd make it in time.

"Judas, hold your breath!" he shouted as he focused hard releasing a large cloud of gas from his bowels. Sadly, what normally was the key element to him flying didn't seem to cut it (No pun intended) as he didn't seem to be going faster.

"I'm wearing you down," Judas said, "Let go or we'll both be trapped here forever."

"I'm not leaving you behind!" Mantarou snapped as Judas sighed and used the last of his strength to kick Mantarou in the back, sending the kid flying through the door and flat on his face.

His friends cheered for him as the door sealed up completely, Mantarou looking down. Meat put on a look of concern and placed a hand on his shoulder saying, "It's not your fault, Mantarou-san."

Mantarou sighed as Rinko stated, "Maybe he'll escape some other way. It is his world, after all."

That was true. Mantarou's look of sadness was replaced with a smile as hope filled his body. Perhaps Rinko was right. Maybe Judas had escaped.

(For the record, I might be continuing this in another fic. I haven't truly decided on that yet. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this.)


End file.
